KatAnu Connect Podcast
Kate Megaw, Ryan Smith & Anu Smalley host a variety of discussions on Leadership & Agility!
Episodes
181 episodes
Role Clarity: Roles vs. Accountabilities and Why It Matters
“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 th...
Stop the Whiplash: Why Constant Reprioritizing Is Quietly Killing Your Team
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...
Just Because AI Can, Doesn’t Mean It Should: The Human in the Loop and Why AI Transformations Fail
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 loo...
You Don't Have an Empowerment Problem. You Have an Ownership Problem.
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-bottlenecke...
AI Stopped Being an Afterthought: Finding Calm in the Overwhelm and the Pivot Ahead
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 us...
Over-Talkers, Under-Talkers, and the Meetings Nobody Enjoys
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 r...
Drop the Framework Theater. Deliver the Work.
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...
Call It What You Want. Can You Deliver?
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 i...
You Don’t Have a Strategy Problem: You Have an Execution Problem
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 prin...
Org Design for Agility: Guardrails, Flexible Funding, and Building for Adaptability
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 guard...
Purpose, Partners, and Technology: The Leadership Principles Behind Enterprise Agility
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 t...
Agility belongs to all of us... and a new Manifesto just made it official
25 years ago, the Manifesto for Agile Software Development gave teams a new way to work. Last month, PMI released the ...
Surfing the Wave: How to Protect Your Energy When Change Isn't Yours to Lead
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 ma...
The Change Catalyst: Leading Beyond the "What" to the "Why"
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. R...
Resistance to Change Isn’t the Problem… Your Culture Is
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 ...
Change Done To People vs Change Done With People: Breaking the Resistance Cycle
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 orga...
Permacrisis & Change Fatigue: Why Your Change is Failing
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 r...
The Etiquette Gap Killing Your Meetings
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 engageme...
Conflict Isn’t the Enemy... Poor Facilitation Is
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 c...
Less Multitasking. More Talking. Better Meetings.
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 ...
Bad Meetings: The Problem We All Face
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...
10 Game-Changing Practical Tips to Supercharge Your Scrum Teams
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? S...
Why Transformations Fail
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, mi...
If Everything Is Priority… Nothing Is
Prioritization sounds simple, until everything is labeled “urgent,” stakeholders are shouting, and teams are stuck context-switching instead of finishing meaningful work. In this episode, we explore why prioritization breaks down at the i...
Trust: The Invisible Force That Makes Work Faster (or Breaks Everything)
Trust doesn’t show up on an org chart. It isn’t tracked in Jira. And yet it determines how fast work moves, how decisions get made, and whether teams feel safe enough to do their best thinking.When trust is present, team...