Are You In A Cargo Cult?

During World War II, something strange happened on remote islands in the Pacific.

Indigenous people watched as Allied forces landed planes, built airstrips, and received massive deliveries from the sky—food, radios, tools, and more. Then the war ended. The soldiers left. The cargo stopped coming.

So the islanders built wooden control towers. They carved headphones out of coconuts. They lit fires in the night, mimicking the air traffic rituals they had seen.

They believed that if they recreated the appearance of those scenes, the cargo would return.

It didn’t.

That’s where the term cargo cult comes from. It describes a phenomenon where people imitate the form of something successful, without understanding the function that made it work in the first place.

It’s not just a historical curiosity. It’s a cautionary tale—and one that plays out constantly in tech.

Modern-Day Rituals

Scrum boards that no one updates.

Standups that provide no clarity.

Sprints that exist in name only.

Microservices splitting a product used by three people.

Terraform-managed infrastructure that barely changes.

SAFe Agile in a company with fewer engineers than a lunch table at Google.

These are not tools in service of a problem.

They’re performances. Reenactments. Rituals.

It looks like work. It feels like process.

But it’s theater. And deep down, many teams know it.

The signal fires are lit.

The bamboo towers are up.

The kanban cards are moving.

Still no cargo.

Why It Happens

It’s tempting to adopt the symbols of success.

It signals professionalism. Readiness. Sophistication.

And it’s often done with the best intentions.

But without understanding why those processes existed in the first place—what specific problems they solved—they become empty exercises. Expensive ones.

What works at Google might suffocate a startup.

What works at scale might be a burden at small team velocity.

What’s impressive in a case study might be irrelevant in your actual context.

Cargo cults aren’t built from laziness.

They’re built from aspiration—and fear.

Aspiration to “do things the right way.”

Fear of looking like you’re not.

Are You Doing It?

Some simple questions:

Are we solving a real problem, or copying a solution we saw online?

Have we ever actually experienced the thing this is supposed to prevent?

Are we adding process because it helps, or because it’s expected?

Would anything break if we stopped doing this?

Cargo culting thrives on mimicry.

It replaces intentionality with appearance.

And the worst part? It eats time.

It takes energy away from things that do matter.

What to Do Instead

Be honest. Be specific. Be situational.

Ask why—constantly.

Choose tools and structures based on your current problems, not someone else’s past.

Optimize for clarity and outcomes, not optics.

Respect your team’s time and attention. They are not infinite resources.

You don’t need to build control towers to feel like an engineer.

You don’t need rituals to feel legitimate.

Because the goal isn’t to build planes.

The goal is to do things that matter.

To build features that users actually need.

To improve systems that are actually breaking.

To make progress that is actually felt.

So stop waiting for the cargo to arrive.

And start building the thing you actually need.