KatAnu Connect Podcast

Communication used to be filed away as a soft skill.  Kate Megaw and Ryan Smith make the case that it has become central to everything we do.  In a VUCA environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, communication is the anchor that keeps teams steady, and a recent Wiley survey found that 64 percent of people call it the single most important leadership skill. Kate and Ryan dig i...

Kate and Ryan come at agility from opposite ends of the org chart. Kate arrived through training, operations, and project management on the leadership side. Ryan started as a front-end developer who built a Kanban board before he knew it had a name.  In this episode they trace Ryan's path from coder to Scrum Master, and dig into the questions every agile practitioner eventually asks.  Does a...

“We have twelve scrum masters. Why is nothing working?” If you have ever asked some version of that question, this episode is for you. Kate Megaw, Anu Smalley and Ryan Smith dig into the challenge they hear in almost every class they teach, a real lack of role clarity. Companies send a strong project manager to a two day course, hand them a new title, and then wonder why nothing changes. The hones...

Everything is a fire. Everything is priority number one.  And by tomorrow, the number one priority has changed again. Sound familiar? In this episode, Kate Megaw, Anu Smalley, and Ryan Smith dig into the challenge they hear at almost every client and leadership class: a real lack of prioritization.  Not just inside the sprint, but across the whole organization, where teams get handed a brand new t...

AI can generate an answer in seconds. The harder question is whether it is the right answer to the right question, and what you actually do with it. In this episode, Kate Megaw, Anu Smalley, and Ryan Smith dig into what “human in the loop” really means, and why so many AI transformations are failing. Forbes puts enterprise generative AI failure near 95%, and RAND says more than 80% of AI projects...

Leaders say their teams are empowered. The teams won't make a decision. Somewhere between those two sentences sits the real problem. This episode tackles the gap between the rhetoric of empowerment and the reality of approval-bottlenecked, micromanaged teams. Kate is joined from the Scottish Highlands by Anu Smalley and Ryan Smith for an honest look at why so many "empowered" teams...

event. Kate and Anu just wrapped a wild month on the road, and the message from both conferences was loud and clear: AI is no longer a bolt-on, it's the operating system! Fresh off Global Scrum Gathering Vancouver and Canvas 26 (Miro's user conference in San Francisco), Kate Megaw and Anu Smalley sit down with Ryan Smith to unpack two completely different conferences that delivered the e...

Every team has them. The teammate who turns a one-word answer into a five-minute monologue. The developer who has not said a word in three retrospectives. The Product Owner who "adds context" to every user story before anyone gets a chance to read it.  This episode is a high-energy, no-nonsense look at the over-talkers and under-talkers who quietly shape every meeting, and at the facilit...

Organizations are still struggling to deliver what their customers want, when they want it, and the loudest question in delivery right now is whether agile and traditional project management are stronger together. Some Scrum practitioners are pursuing PMP certifications for the first time, traditional project managers are picking up the updated PMI-ACP, and the lines between Scrum Master and Proje...

The framework wars are over, and the only question that still matters is whether the work is landing in your customers' hands. This episode dives into the great convergence of project management and agility. Job titles are blending, PMI is leaning hard into adaptive approaches, and the new PMBOK reads nothing like the tablet of stone we used to study. The lines between Scrum Master and Projec...

High-performing organizations don’t just plan better: They shorten the distance between decision, action, and learning. This episode closes out the deep dive into the Manifesto for Enterprise Agility.  This week covers the three principles of execution: move authority to where value is created, deliver value frequently and make work visible, and sense early, learn quickly, and act with confidence....

Most organizations don't need more frameworks: they need fewer constraints. This episode continues the deep dive into the Manifesto for Enterprise Agility, this week tackling the three principles of organizational design.  From guardrails vs. gatekeepers to funding teams over projects, we unpack why the way most organizations are structured is quietly killing their agility. In this episode, w...

What separates truly agile organizations from those just going through the motions?  It starts with leadership behavior, specifically, three principles from the Manifesto for Enterprise Agility that challenge leaders to think bigger than their org chart.  In this episode, we unpack what it means to create real clarity of purpose, extend agility beyond your organizational boundaries, and put techno...

25 years ago, the Manifesto for Agile Software Development gave teams a new way to work.  Last month, PMI released the Manifesto for Enterprise Agility  and it belongs to every leader, every function, every layer of the organization. We dug into all four values on the latest Team KatAnu podcast episode, what they mean, why they matter now, and what shifts when leaders take ownership of agility. Th...

Every episode this month has been aimed at the people leading change.  This one is for everyone else. Most of us aren't the ones calling the change, we're the ones living it.  And nobody hands you a manual for how to handle a mandate that landed from above, a team that's frustrated, and a world that won't stop shifting long enough to catch your breath. In this episode, we talk...

Change rarely fails because the idea itself was wrong.  More often, it fails because leaders communicate poorly, move too fast, contradict their own message, or expect people to buy in before they understand why the change matters.  Real change leadership is not about having a perfect rollout plan.  It is about building trust, creating clarity, involving people early, adapting as you learn, and le...

Organizations often assume that resistance to change comes from stubborn employees or teams unwilling to adapt.  But the real barrier is rarely the people - it’s the culture surrounding them. In this episode, we explore the cultural dynamics that make change so difficult to implement.  From fear of the unknown to lingering scars from past initiatives that failed, teams often carry memories and ass...

Why do most change initiatives fail?  It’s rarely because the idea was bad, it’s because the change was done to people instead of with them.  In this episode, Kate, Anu and Ryan dive into the psychology of organizational transformation.  They explore why leaders fall into the trap of "decisive" silos, the high cost of skipping alignment for the sake of speed, and why the "wisdom of...

When it comes to organizational change, why do we prioritize tools and frameworks like Kotter or ADKAR over the very people expected to use them? In this episode we do dive deep into the "human side" of change management. We discuss the rising phenomenon of "Change Fatigue" and "Permacrisis," exploring how back-to-back transformations can traumatize an organization’s...

Meeting etiquette isn’t just about being polite - it’s about whether meetings actually produce results.  In this episode, we unpack the unwritten rules that make meetings effective (or painful), from preparation and punctuality to engagement, follow-through, and accountability. You’ll hear why etiquette failures are rarely about rudeness and more often about systems, culture, and leadership signal...

Is conflict the enemy of a productive meeting, or its secret ingredient?  In this episode, Kate Megaw, Anu Smalley, and Ryan Smith dive into the "iceberg" of workplace tension.  They break down the crucial difference between healthy conflict and toxic confrontation, reveal the subtle warning signs of a meeting going off the rails (from "gritted teeth" to the "silent treatm...

Meetings are full, but participation is missing!  In this episode, we explore why multitasking, dominant voices, and silent participants have become the norm, and what actually helps teams engage again.  We unpack common facilitation challenges like uneven participation and low psychological safety, then share practical techniques teams can use right away: stacking, clear working agreements, inten...

Is your calendar full of meetings that go nowhere?  You're not alone.  In this kickoff episode of our " Bold Solutions for Big Problems " series, Kate, Anu, and Ryan dive into the universal challenge of bad meetings－and the costs are staggering. We explore the most common symptoms plaguing organizations today: unclear purposes, too many attendees, multitasking participants, lack of...

Stop overthinking Agile philosophy and start implementing these battle-tested tweaks that actually work! You know what's exhausting?  All the theoretical debates about Agile frameworks. You know what's actually useful?  Simple, practical tips that make your Scrum teams run smoother starting tomorrow .  After years of coaching teams across industries, we've learned that the biggest i...

Transformations don’t fail because the framework is wrong, they fail because the people system isn’t ready.  In this episode, we unpack the patterns that derail Agile, AI, and “pick-your-flavor” change efforts: unclear purpose, missing champions, fuzzy roles, cultural resistance, and plans so complicated everyone checks out.  We’ll also share what actually works: start with a clear why, build visi...