“The Theater of Productivity: Why We Pretend to Be Busy”
✍️ The Theater of Productivity On one wall of the conference room, Kanban boards are packed, Jira tickets shimmer across the screens, and the team calendar is crammed with meeting schedules. From the outside, it looks perfect. Every project is “in progress,” and at the weekly stand-up, the phrase “everything is on track” flows effortlessly. The rhythm is as tight as an orchestra. But the truth is different. The orchestra is actually on mute. Musicians pretend to play the violin, tap the drums, and rest their hands on the piano. The audience (executives) sits far away, so they can’t hear the melody. Instead, they clap at the conductor’s dramatic gestures and neat attire, thinking, “Wow, amazing.” The development floor is no different. Jira tickets flow like scripts for actors, but behind the scenes, no one is actually performing. The moment a ticket moves to the “In Progress” column, we feel relieved. Even though no real progress has been made, we fall into the illusion that things are moving forward. Look at the calendar: it’s filled with meetings all day. An illusion of being busy with important work. But after the meetings, all that remains are the minutes—a prop—and the line, “Let’s discuss again next week.” This is the theater of productivity. Shifting tickets, filling meeting rooms, showing demo videos—it all looks normal until the lights go out. Once the audience leaves, what remains are broken code and unfinished features. The saddest part is that the actors themselves begin to believe in their performance. “We are really busy, we are really productive.” But at some point, they realize that true value has diminished, and only the appearance of busyness has increased. This theater will eventually collapse. As Stein’s Law says: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." When that day comes, the dazzling stage sets and lights will disappear, leaving only the code and systems that someone actually built.
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