You know the feeling.
It's 9:47 AM. You're in a quick sync that was supposed to last 15 minutes. It's been 43.
Someone is sharing their screen. A dashboard. Everything is green. The sprint is "on track." The team has "no blockers." The retro produced actionable insights.
And yet.
You shipped nothing last week. The same bug has been "in progress" for three sprints. The architect quit last month and nobody talks about it. There's a Slack channel called #war-room that's been active for 11 days straight.
But the dashboard is green. Welcome to Risk Management Theater.
What is Risk Management Theater?
Risk Management Theater (RMT) is the organizational practice of performing risk management without actually managing risk.
It's the standup that surfaces no blockers — because admitting a blocker makes you the blocker.
It's the retrospective that produces insights but never changes systems.
It's the dashboard designed to reassure stakeholders, not reveal reality.
It's the meeting that exists to distribute liability, not to make decisions.
RMT is what happens when the appearance of control becomes more important than actual control.
The term comes from security theater — the post-9/11 phenomenon where airports implemented visible but ineffective security measures to make passengers feel safe without making them be safe.
Same energy. Different domain.
In software organizations, RMT is the systematic replacement of real risk management with its performative equivalent. The ceremonies happen. The artifacts are produced. The dashboards glow green.
And then production goes down at 2 AM and everyone acts surprised.
Why RMT Exists
RMT isn't stupidity. It's incentives. Here's the uncomfortable truth: in most organizations, surfacing risk is punished, not rewarded.
Think about it.
When you say "no blockers" in standup, you're safe. You're a team player. You're making progress.
When you say "actually, this architecture won't scale and we need to stop and fix it" — now you're the problem. You're "not solution-oriented." You're blocking the sprint.
So people learn. Fast.
They learn that the meeting isn't about identifying risk. It's about not being the one who identified the risk.
Because if you identify the risk and it happens anyway, you're the one who knew and didn't fix it.
But if nobody identifies the risk and it happens, well — who could have known?
RMT is a collective agreement to not see what everyone sees.
It's not a bug. It's a feature. A feature that protects individuals while destroying teams.
The 5 Warning Signs
How do you know if you're in Risk Management Theater? Here are 5 signs. If you recognize three or more, you're not imagining it.
"No blockers" is the default answer
In your standups, how often does someone actually raise a blocker? If the answer is "rarely" or "never," you're not in a high-performing team with no problems. You're in a team where problems are socially discouraged.Decisions are made before meetings
The meeting exists to "align" — but alignment means getting everyone to nod at a decision that was already made in a smaller room, with fewer witnesses.
The meeting isn't decision-making. It's liability distribution.Dashboards are green, reality is red
Everything looks on track until it isn't. The metrics are designed to tell a story, not reveal truth. When the story and reality diverge, the story wins — until it can't.Retrospectives produce insights, not changes
You've had 47 action items in 6 months. How many were completed? How many changed the system?
If retros are where good ideas go to die, you're performing reflection without practicing it.Visibility means surveillance
"Transparency" has become a euphemism for tracking people, not clarifying systems. You know exactly what everyone is working on. You have no idea why the system keeps failing.
Sound familiar?
There are 5 more signs. I've compiled all 10 into a diagnostic tool — a simple scorecard that tells you exactly how deep you are in RMT.
→ Take the RMT Diagnostic
It takes 5 minutes. Be honest with yourself.
The Real Cost
RMT isn't just annoying. It's expensive. The data:
83% of developers report burnout, driven primarily by process dysfunction [1]
$110,000+ per team per year spent on Scrum ceremonies alone — before the bloat [2]
23 minutes to regain focus after each interruption [3]
153% increase in weekly meetings since 2020 [4]
But the real cost isn't in the spreadsheet. It's the senior engineer who quit because she couldn't ship anything meaningful anymore.
It's the outage that everyone saw coming but nobody could say. It's the slow death of craftsmanship — the creeping realization that your job is no longer building software, it's performing building software.
Risk doesn't disappear when you stop talking about it. It relocates.
It moves from dashboards to production. From standups to 2 AM incidents. From retros to resignation letters.
The theater continues until reality forces the curtain call.
The Question Nobody Asks
Here's what I want you to try. In your next meeting, ask one of these questions:
"What decision is actually open today?"
"What are we de-scoping to pay for this?"
"Which risk are we silently accepting right now?"
Watch what happens.
If people engage thoughtfully, you might be in a healthy environment.
If people get uncomfortable, defensive, or irritated — your RMT score is higher than you think.
The theater survives because nobody names it. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you name it, others can see it too.
What Now?
If you've read this far, you're probably not in denial. You're probably exhausted.
You're probably wondering if it's you — if you're "not a team player," if you're "too negative," if you just need to "trust the process."
You're not the problem. The system is.
And the first step to fixing it is measuring it. Take the RMT Diagnostic
10 signs. 5 minutes. A score that tells you the truth.
If your score is low, congratulations — you're in a rare healthy environment. If your score is high, at least now you know. And knowing is the first step to escaping.
RMT is one of 12 patterns of organizational dysfunction I've documented after 23 years in the industry. If you want the full playbook — the patterns, the escape routes, the scripts, the case studies — check out The Anti-Agile Manifesto.
References:
[1] Haystack Analytics (2021). 83% of Developers Suffer From Burnout.
[2] Internal analysis based on average developer salary and ceremony time allocation.
[3] Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008). The Cost of Interrupted Work.
[4] Microsoft Work Trend Index (2023). Will AI Fix Work?
Originally published at agilelie.com/blog/risk-management-theater
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