Meeting Theater

About 10 years ago an agile coach introduced me to this concept: meeting theater.

He was talking about scrum ceremonies. Teams going through daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives because the framework said so. Not because it moved anything forward. A fake display of productivity with no progress.

Throughout my career I’ve been watching organizations that struggle to ship.

Management teams spend 8 hours a day in meetings. The calendar looks impressive, packed with important-sounding work.

But nothing gets built.

Meeting theater feels productive. That’s the trap. But those decisions need execution, and execution needs uninterrupted time.

The busy schedule becomes proof of importance. The full calendar signals commitment.

Someone has to write the code, ship the product. That someone isn’t in meetings all day.

The real work happens when people can focus. When they can solve problems instead of talking about solving problems.

But talking about work feels like work.

So the theater continues.