KatAnu Connect Podcast

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 miss. The pattern echoes the early Agile years: chasing a shiny tool without knowing what problem it solves.

AI sees the data. Humans see the story behind it. The human brings context, ethics, and judgment, and stays the ethical guardian who catches the hallucination and the answer that is right for the wrong reasons.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The human algorithm - turning AI outputs into real outcomes through context, ethics, and judgment
• Why AI sees the data but only humans see the story behind it
• Anu’s five workflow principles for human-led AI, including protecting the retro and naming a human decision owner for every recommendation
• Why so many AI transformations fail, and how it mirrors the early Agile years
• AI-enabled vs. AI-native organizations, and why native wins
• Using AI as a tool versus trusting it to run the business
• Choosing the right tool for the job instead of defaulting to one model for everything
• The ethical guardian role - catching not just what AI gets wrong, but what it gets right for the wrong reasons
• Knowing when to trust AI, when to challenge it, and when to override it

 Just because AI can do something does not mean it should. That is where humans come in. We are not using AI to replace thinking. We are creating more space for higher quality thinking for the human in the loop.

Referenced in this episode: the documentary How I Became an Apocalyptimist (Daniel Rohrer), the Conan O’Brien podcast on how tools change but the task doesn’t, the New York Times feature on Box adding AI roles, and the AI-native shift discussed at the Miro Canvas conference.

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 quietly wait to be told what to do, why leaders struggle to let go, and what it actually takes to design autonomy into the system instead of just declaring it.

Most organizations don't have an accountability problem; they have an ownership problem. Without ownership, accountability is just a polite word for blame. This conversation is a working tour through what changes that — the system shifts, the trust mechanics, the working agreements, and the daily moves leaders can make to stop rescuing and start coaching.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The three-legged stool of trust — clarity, capability, and visibility — and how to spot which leg is wobbly when you feel the urge to micromanage
• Why the system around a team has to absorb the shift in power before autonomy can take hold
• Order takers vs. artisans, and how organizations train people out of ownership
• Working agreements that make trust visible: blockers surfaced in 24 hours, no surprises at Sprint Review, no scope-switching mid-sprint, and done means done
• Decision-making guardrails that replace approval queues, including the team empowered to spend up to $200 against the core values
• Tracking emergent work as the real accountability gap leaders rarely look at
• The Pomodoro escalation pattern — solo, pair, team, stop and reassess — that ends hero culture and 4am debugging sessions
• Why leadership's two pillars are clarity of purpose and competence, not managing the work
• The shift from "I know the answer" to "How can I help you find the answer?"

 Hope is not a strategy for empowerment. The goal isn't less leadership. It's leadership that creates more leaders.

Referenced in this episode: Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquette, the Pomodoro Technique, and our recent episode You Don't Have a Strategy Problem: You Have an Execution Problem (Ep. 172).

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 exact same wake-up call.

Inside: the highs, the lows, the pages of notes, and the calm that came after the dust settled. From the 80/20 flip to why AI-native beats AI-bolted-on, to the pivot Kate and Anu are making in their own business, this is a real, honest field report from two events and two very different rooms.

If you're feeling the overwhelm too, you're not alone. Hit play. Take a breath. Let's find the calm together.

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 facilitation moves that turn a room of crickets and ramblers into a room of contributors. Expect a practical tour through the Explorer, Shopper, Vacationer, and Prisoner lens from Diana Larsen and Esther Derby's Agile Retrospectives, a fresh take on meeting personas like the Rambler, the Interrupter, the Silent Assassin, and the Ghost Participant, and a stack of techniques you can use this week:

• Sand timers in stand-ups. 
• Parking lots that get used. 
• Round-robin and popcorn share-outs. 
• Intentionally crafted breakout rooms. 
• Silent brainstorming. 
• "Make space, take space" working agreements. 
• And the most underused move of all, one-on-one coaching outside the meeting.

The takeaway is simple and bracing. The goal of a great meeting is not equal talking time. The goal is meaningful contribution. Great facilitators do more than manage conversations. They create the conditions for better conversations to happen.

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 Project Manager have blurred in the marketplace.  Both disciplines bring real strengths. Forward thinking leaders are leaning into the blend instead of defending a camp.

Most organizations are not picking sides anymore.  They are picking outcomes. The question is no longer "are we doing real Scrum" or "are we doing proper Project Management."  The question is whether your teams are delivering value, learning fast, and treating their customers like the heroes of the story.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why "Technical Project Manager" and "Scrum Master" have quietly become the same role on most job boards
• How the updated PMI-ACP is bridging traditional project management and agile leadership
• The hybrid skills organizations are hungry for
• The leadership move that changes everything, regardless of title or framework

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 Project Manager have blurred in the marketplace, and forward-thinking leaders are leaning into the blend instead of fighting it.

Most organizations are not picking sides anymore; they are picking outcomes. The question is no longer "are we doing real Scrum" or "are we doing proper Project Management." The question is whether your teams are delivering value, learning fast, and treating their customers like the heroes of the story.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why "technical project manager" and "Scrum Master" have quietly become the same role on most job boards
• How PMI and Agile Alliance moved from rivals to partners, and what the new PMBOK signals about the future
• The Shuhari path of mastery, and why so many teams skip straight to “ri” without earning it
• The better questions leaders should be asking instead of arguing about labels

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 have a strategy problem; they have an execution problem.  Work moves too slowly, stays invisible, and sits disconnected from the people best placed to decide what to do next.  These three principles are the mechanics for fixing that.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why authority must travel with accountability if empowerment is going to be real
• Using Management 3.0’s Delegation Poker to make decision rights explicit
• What ’making work visible’ really means beyond having a Jira board
• Why a Sprint Review should be a real show and tell, not a smoke-and-mirrors PowerPoint
• How sensing early shortens the gap between signal, decision, and action
• Why psychological safety, air cover, and a learning culture sit underneath all three principles

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, we discuss:

• Why empowering teams starts with replacing gatekeepers with guardrails
• The case for funding outcomes and value streams, not projects
• Why efficiency is the enemy of adaptability and what to focus on instead
• Delegation Poker and other practical tools for shifting decision-making culture
• Why your org design will stop your agility before your methodology ever will

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 technology and distributed talent at the core of how your company creates value.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• Clarity of purpose enables confident decision-making: when teams truly understand enterprise outcomes, they can adapt plans as conditions change without waiting for permission
• Enterprise agility doesn't stop at your front door: in an increasingly interdependent value ecosystem, agility must extend to partners, vendors, and contractors
• Technology, data, and AI aren't support functions: they're core to how companies create value, make decisions, compete, and respond in a fast-changing environment
• Distributed talent requires intentional equity: technology and inclusion practices must make remote and hybrid team members active participants, not observers on the outside looking in
• Agility isn't about moving faster: it's about removing what's actually slowing you down

Ask yourself this week: Does your entire organization understand your purpose well enough to adapt with confidence when conditions change?

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.

The next chapter of agility is here. And it starts at the top!