Practical DevOps

Beware the cargo cult Agile fallacy

Richard Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in the field of quantum physics in 1965. He noticed a common behavior among scientists, in which they went though all the motions of science but missed some central, vital ingredient of the scientific process. He called this behavior "cargo cult science," since it was reminiscent of the cargo cults in the Melanesian South Sea islands. These cargo cults where formed during the Second World War when the islanders watched great planes land with useful cargo. After the war stopped, the cargo also stopped coming. The islanders started simulating landing strips, doing everything just as they had observed the American military do, in order for the planes to land. ...