Katie Muldrew reveals why most teams stay stuck, and the practical tools that help them align, decide, and move forward with confidence.
GROWTH PILLAR: Leadership & Ops
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Solopreneurs / Team leads / Leaders building systems
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: Practical tools for building trust, running micro experiments, and getting teams aligned without endless meetings or burnout
Most teams don't struggle because of bad people. They struggle because of unclear purpose, low trust, and ideas that never get tested.
Katie Muldrew is a facilitator and innovation strategist and the founder of the Collective Knot. She helps leaders and teams align around shared goals, communicate clearly, and move forward with confidence. Her background spans civil engineering in Ireland, rebuilding horizontal infrastructure in Christchurch after the 2011 earthquakes, and innovation leadership at WorkSafe New Zealand. She now works with public and private sector organizations across Atlantic Canada, Ontario, and beyond.
In this episode, Katie breaks down why collaboration breaks down — and what to do about it.
Key topics covered:
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Next Steps
Bernie (00:22)
Question to the audience: Why does collaboration in your team feel chaotic and slow?
Our guest will unpack how leaders and teams can move collaboration out of chaos by building trust using human-centered design and running small, low risk experiments that turn good ideas into real progress without burnout or endless meetings. Our guest today is Katie Muldrew from the Collective Knot. She's a facilitator and innovation strategist and founder of the Collective Knot. With a background in engineering and human-centered design,
And she's originally from Ireland, which you'd probably be able to tell by her voice. she began her career in civil engineering that played a hands-on role in rebuilding Christchurch in New Zealand after the 2011 earthquakes. As an innovation lead at WorkSafe New Zealand, Katie worked across diverse industries, helping organizations tackle complex challenges by applying practical human-centered approaches that improve safety, health, and rural and real-world outcomes.
Now based in Prince Edward Island, she partners with public and private sector teams to foster collaboration, align around purpose, and de-risk innovation so good ideas actually stick. A self described engineer turned innovation facilitator and the mind behind the flower growing side business, the petal pusher, Katie believes strong teams and healthy gardens thrive on the same essentials, clear systems, patience, and genuine care.
Katie, an absolute pleasure having you here today. Thank you so much for joining us. Do you have a favorite quote or saying?
Katie (01:47)
yes, I do have a favourite culture, one that kind of sticks in my mind a lot of the time and it's a team is not a group of people who work together, a team of the group of people who trust each other and I think that's attributed to Simon Sinek.
Bernie (01:59)
And what is what is your tagline for your business?
Katie (02:01)
helping teams align and decide and move forward with confidence.
Bernie (02:06)
You know, you you when I first heard your journey and you said, Listen, I was into this space, I was in engineering and and now, you know, and then that journey. What what shift do you from the engineering universe, which is like, you know, these are how things go together and this is how you build on things, towards facilitation. What what drew that what drew your interest into that space?
Katie (02:26)
I think with engineering, when I wanted to be an engineer, I thought about building houses in Africa or building some sort of like slow sand filter to filtrate the water in third world countries and stuff like that. I was always gravitated towards this value of contribution, like how can I contribute? And
When I graduated engineering in Ireland, I was kind of working part time in a restaurant and one of the girls that I worked with was from Christchurch and she told me all about how the earthquakes had affected her hometown. So immediately I was OK, that sounds like something that really aligns with my value, values, contribution. And the next day I was in the visa office and a month later I was on a flight to Christchurch.
I got to be involved in Christchurch. There was a big Alliance program called SCIRT. was a stronger Christchurch infrastructure rebuild team. And they were tasked with repairing or redesigning all the damaged infrastructure, horizontal infrastructure in Christchurch. So the roads, bridges, all the pipes underground, everything, all the horizontal infrastructure. And I was fortunate enough to be part of that Alliance.
I was like, okay, this is, felt like I could contribute and make a difference. What I found was, is that that contribution almost felt very indirect. Like I had a small part of a program, I would design it and it would take a long time for it to get built and to be of value to the community. And, and even then,
When I go over the Confederation Bridge, I'm always amazed by how much of an engineering feat it is. And I'm sure most people just drive over a bridge and it's just another bridge. And so I miss that indirect feeling of contribution. And in the alliance, in the Skirt Alliance, they had performance coaches. And one of the things that they were doing was these goal setting workshops.
And I asked if I could co-facilitate one and they said, no problem. They gave me my little part. And I just fell in love with the idea of helping people have aha moments, giving them more clarity, people even more motivated, more empowered. And it was this kind of like instant feedback of contribution. And ever since that, I wanted to do more and more of it. So I sought out
like more opportunities to facilitate until I landed in Canada and kind of made it my whole business really.
Bernie (04:50)
You know, as you described, you know, talking about infrastructure and here in Canada that we have older infrastructure. And in fact, if you listen to the news, you hear something about out west, there's one city, the water main popped again. Actually, where it broke last time or near near where it broke last time. And it's it's age related. When you're dealing with an infrastructure refit, in you know, in this case in New Zealand, is there I mean, it's one thing to have legacy.
But there's you know infrastructure legacy and then there's also the legacy of we'll have always in it this way. Is it was the facilitation helping you get around that? obviously things had to get fixed and they had to get fixed in a timely manner. But you know, what stopped it going being done the same way it was done before? Because you know what? You know, if it's easier because we've done it this way before, we don't have to learn new new tricks, right? So there's the old dog. How how did you work around that?
Katie (05:36)
One of the things that Skirt was really good for was the Duncan who was in charge was very good at reinforcing what the purpose was. And it was about building resilient infrastructure. The word resilient was used a lot. And so kind of with that word in mind, like people came up with new ideas and the way they set up that whole Alliance was just prime for
innovation and allowing people to be innovative. Like there was the conditions there that people could find new things. And the other interesting thing was it was made up of companies that are largely competitors. Usually they would like compete for work. So even though there was different teams within the same building, you had like similar to Canada.
the likes of WSP and StanTech and ACOM and GHD all in the same building with different projects, but kind of also working together. And that sparked a lot of idea sharing and information sharing, not initially, but like people would start talking about ideas and what ideas were better for the situation. And there was always different options. And so
I think just that whole environment, could be, nobody could kind of leave it like as it was, or nobody could kind of play it non-innovative, if that makes sense.
Bernie (06:57)
Yeah, it does. You know, it it's the other part of it, it's project management, but it it's on a in this in this particular case is even on a larger scale. How do you make sure that, you know, if if because you you know, if you think back to your your training as an engineer, this is how you know we build this, this is how we do that, and these how you adapt things. But you know, i i if I'm handling water supply, whether it's you know fresh water or you know.
wastewater versus electricity versus gas, you know, the utilities and then road structure, you know, for for heavier vehicle traffic and so forth, or even bridge work. These are all like different boxes, right? Because the the engineer does electrical, you know, doesn't do plumbing typically. How do how do you bring it so that it comes in and breathes a life that it's in sync? It's it's you know it's it's working together, you know, because I
Every once in a while you hear about tradespeople the the you know the plumber complains about attrition because you know attrition wants to cut holes through the the wall and going, Yeah, you're cutting right where my pipes are, bud. Don't do that. How d how do you keep everybody in sync so that you know, great idea and but have it aligned.
Katie (08:03)
I think having all the expertise in one place definitely helped. There was definitely, if you needed a specialist, they were all in the building. So, and it was kind of like a flat structure where it was set up in a way where you felt like you would go and talk to anybody. Another thing that they did, which isn't really traditional in engineering projects is they had early contractor involvement.
So usually with a typical design and build contract, a consultant or designer will design something and then it goes to tender and different contractors compete for it. And then somebody wins. And then they have to build the thing that the engineers have designed. And sometimes that's really challenging for them because the design might be tricky or there might be something that the engineer didn't take account for. And one of the really cool things about skirt was
when a project was at different stages, we had the contractor come in that was assigned to that job and we would say, here's our option so far, what do you think? And they would say, well, I don't think we should do it that way because of these reasons, or we should do it this way because the way the road is set up or it'll make traffic management easier. so having that really helped designing something that was going to be easier.
and more robust for the contractor to build. That was a really cool feature.
Bernie (09:25)
So the art of collaboration, it's not a not a vibe, it's it's a skill. And I I so I think the part of collaboration also means you're focused on the the cent human centric look of of things. What does that mean in plain business terms? Like you know, you've experienced it in a large refurbishment r recovery situation in New Zealand, but what does that mean in a non you know
Infrastructure getting things back online, there's great import, everybody's on board. But in a smaller business environment, how do you get everybody in that same framework? Like how does that look?
Katie (09:59)
Yeah, from a collaboration point of view or from a human centered point of view?
Bernie (10:04)
Why, yes, why yes to both.
Katie (10:06)
Okay. When I think back on skirt, like in terms of collaboration, for me personally, and everyone's journey is going to be a little bit different. My perspective is that I saw this shift over time where when I went in initially, people were very guarded with their IP and because they're naturally competitors and at some point,
the rebuild will be over and they'll be back to their normal jobs competing for the same work. And so, you know, there was a kind of a protectionism over their IP. But what I saw over time was the fact that the leader Duncan, like every time we had a meeting repeated the purpose, why we were here building a resilient different structure that gives people confidence in the future of Christchurch. Like that was like a mantra, it was all over the walls. And so people really, really knew what the purpose was.
and focused on that. And also we did a lot of kind of social things, like the ways to connect with each other, like cross pollinating across the different teams. And so you could see the trust build up over time. Like it's not something that can happen like quickly. And so I saw this transformation of with a clear purpose and a clear vision, people...
have really good direction. And when it's for the greater good, like silos fall away a little bit. And also building that trust then over time, I saw more and more people share IP, share ideas. Like I remember when I went to a different team initially and said, hey, you're the expert in this type of retaining wall. I think it would be a good option for my project, but I don't really know a lot about it. Like can you share, can you help me?
At the start it was like, no, can't, I'll let you run my, if you give me numbers, I'll run it in my software. And then towards the end of my time there, was like, here's my software. know, feel free to use it. So it was just this really nice transition over time. And then that's when I realized how much like purpose and trust are like the sandwich of collaboration, but they need to be nurtured.
And then this human centered approach to anything really is about putting your end user in the center of what you do, like really understanding their needs, their interests, their pain points, like being obsessed with them almost in order to design something that's really meaningful.
and that they will use. it's going to add a lot of value because you really know who the person is that you're designing for. And so that's harder in engineering because you're designing for an infrastructure, lots of different people that are going to use the infrastructure, but in different organizations where it's like a different product or service, then that becomes really important, especially
in today's day and age when there's a lot of competition and tension split between different things that people could use. Like how do you know your user really, really well, better than anybody else in order to create something that they will find really valuable and meaningful.
Bernie (13:08)
So if if a a company is coming up with a brand new idea, I'm I'm now walk walking away from the it's it's broken, let's fix it as a team or you know, a large corporation. But someone's coming together and they they're gonna you know bring forward a new idea. There's a genesis at some point, you know, someone's recognized a problem or someone has a solution that, you know you know, going from horse and buggy to motorcycle to car.
How when when innovation comes together, what usually kind of cripples it? you know, from the ta ha to mm, that's unfortunate.
Katie (13:42)
Sometimes, sometimes the word innovation itself can get in the way. think innovation is kind of a loaded term. And sometimes people are really empowered and energized by it and other people feel really threatened and exhausted by it. And it's like, what is innovation really? You know, is it incremental? Like does it hug?
the line of continuous improvement to this like almost Steve Jobs transformational innovation. And so in WorkSafe, we moved away from using the word innovation and using the word better work. Because that's easier for people to think about a manager, just need to make my work better. And if you have a team that already has a full workload,
And then you're like, hey, we're going to innovate some new stuff. how, like, do this? And so, so the other side of that is usually sizing something correctly for what people already have on their plate. Like if you have a whole, like a dedicated innovation team and that's their job, it's easier for them. But if you're doing something that's a whole organization, like
redesigning something where you want everyone to be on board or involved in some way. It really needs to be sized, right? So it feels manageable. And then the other aspect of that is that really needs leadership buy-in. I've done brought people together for this kind of mission-orientated innovation style way of working with like diverse.
backgrounds and perspectives and different organizations and everyone was really keen to collaborate. But there was this kind of feeling of, we could do all this work, but how are we gonna actually make it happen? Because there's no key decision maker in the room or there's no key decision maker that's been bought into it initially at the start that will say, hey, whatever comes out of this, we'll give it a go. So they're probably the most important things.
Bernie (15:39)
There's a I see a notation about micro experiments for risk reduction for smaller teams. Walk me through what you mean by micro experim micro experiments. I I my head's my headspace, I think I go, yep, prove the point. No, not prove the point, but prove that an element works. But what is a micro experiment?
Katie (15:57)
Yeah, so how I think about micro experiments is like the analogy of in aviation that one in 60 rule. if a pilot is one degree off, then for every 60 miles, they will be one mile like off. And so I think it's like something like New York to Los Angeles, you might be like 40 miles off and in the Pacific Ocean. so pilots always have to
readjust their course to make sure they're on track and like little tweaks, accounting for weather and everything else that they have to account for. And that's how I view micro experiments in a organizational context. It's like, how can we design a quick test, even if it's just talking to one customer to validate something, to make sure that we're on the right track and aligned all the time. And maybe we talk to somebody and
they say, that's not really a priority for me. This thing is more important than that thing. Then you know, okay, that's the thing we should focus on as a priority. that's, but that, that, that is the center, maybe something else, and then test that with somebody else. And you're, it's always kind of readjusting to make sure that you're aligned on where you want to get to.
Bernie (17:09)
I'm gonna touch on a bit back to New Zealand one more time. how big how big was that operation? Like how many people were involved at its maximum flow? Obviously, you know, it starts off small and then and starts to, you know, gains weight of you know based on the number of people. is there like is there a maximum size that you know becomes too unwieldy? I've been told in the past, you know, that in in the healthcare, you know, there's a nurse manager.
And she'll have or he will have like a hundred and thirty people, but in real you know, in practical terms you can only manage maybe about maybe fifteen, top end, thirty people. Is is there is there a kind of a a size ratio because you gotta do the rah rah rahs to keep on on going forward, right? Is is there a size consideration?
Or even even even how it's shaped so that you you know, that you can manage it. Obviously if you have two hundred people, right, you can't you can't know how all well you can get to know them, but you know.
Katie (18:03)
Yeah. Well, so well, let's say there was there was 200 in that building. And so the way the Alliance was set up was there was five large contractors, and then a whole series of designers, and planners and asset managers and people like that did like the CAD and the all the kind of like drawings and everything that everything else that we needed.
I think what they like the way they've broken up. there was four teams in the, in the design building, we'll call it. So there was a red team, blue team, orange team and yellow team. And each team will say had about 50 people. I like probably close to it. and, and it always felt manageable. And so those different teams would get different packets of work and there would be a budget.
and a deadline. so all those kind of APIs were tracked and the teams were kind of, you know, their progress was up on the board. So you could see how the red team was doing compared to the blue team and the yellow team and the orange team. And so it was competitive, but it never really felt like, like competitive, if that makes sense. Like it was not, you wanted to be the best and you wanted your team to do really well.
but it wasn't at the expense of somebody else's team because everyone was there to help build a community, know, help rebuild a city. And so I think the way they broke it down was really good. I think if you had 200 people on one team trying to effectively manage projects, it probably would have felt different.
Bernie (19:29)
So that it it sounds like yeah, there's a level of trust you have to build up to get that momentum going that everybody, you know, blue team's got bigger budget than I do. Hmm, you know, or you know, or they're more successful or sooner. how do you make sure that, you know, the trust, in other words, it's it's a competition, but it's not a competition against each other. It's a more competition getting done. how how do you make sure that you know the the trust stays intact?
Katie (19:54)
I think Skirt did a really good job at one, again, just to reiterate that whole purpose thing, like, because once people feel like they're there for the greater good, it feels less competitive. Also, we would have every week, we would have a whole kind of office toolbox talk on progress and updates and again, why we're here, why we're doing this. And we like,
we had a lot of social events that helped people from different teams connect with each other. And there was lots of sports teams and also people had like opportunity to do things that they probably normally wouldn't get to do in their normal office environment. Like for me asking, hey, can I help with these workshops? And somebody just said, yeah, sure.
If you think you can add value, if you want to do it, then like we'll help you do it. And I had a lot of faith that they trusted me to deliver something like that. If I said I was going to do it, I wanted to deliver it for everybody. And so then I'm co-facilitating this workshop with different people from different groups trying to help them.
get more clarity or alignment or be more empowered or like motivated towards their goals. So there was a lot of kind of cross pollination outside of just the work where people developed really good kind of bonds. Yeah.
Bernie (21:18)
So when you're having a project come together, I'm I'm I'm I'll I'll leave the New Zealand example alone. you know, you're working with with an agency or or company. nothing's ever a hundred percent. Like in other words, I I I want to turn on a light switch, ninety nine percent of the time it comes on, unless of course the bulb burns out or the power's dropped, right? And you know, that's kind of a a a fail point. And I the word fail is kind of maybe a misnomer, just you know, it it isn't going according to plan.
What happens when you encounter something like that? Like you know, your team comes up and it's like, hmm, it's it's not working or they're they're frustrated because they've tried different avenues and you know they haven't had a resolution yet.
How how do you manage that so that everybody stays positive and stays focused?
Katie (22:00)
I'm laughing. had a situation last year that was very like this. sometimes it's hard. So self-awareness is really important in the work that I do because I might have a tried and true tested framework that I've used with teams and got really, really good results. I go, okay, this process will work for this team.
and in the middle, it's not working. so I really need to, it's easy for me to go, well, this works for other teams. So the people are the problem, the people are the problem. But it's not, it's like, okay, what I need to be, okay, what do I need to change? What is not working here? What do people need? What do people need from this situation and what needs to change? And that is my favorite part.
of facilitation, like the chaos of me having to adapt in the moment and being good enough that I have a toolkit that's big enough that I can adapt in the moment. usually if something like that happens, I can quickly get a sense as to why. And so I usually have a plan A, B, C, D, depending on how the first part of the workshop goes.
and what I think the outcome might be. And I think if it's tracking this way, then this is the path I need to follow. And if it's gone off the rails, I think it's because of this and this is what I need to do now. but yeah, that's, it's that problem solving and the adrenaline that goes with that. That is like, I try to off that.
Bernie (23:36)
Well, you know, and you know what, that's that's awesome. So when you're running a workshop and and you people are coming together, is is the workshop one and done or is it a one and we meet again on a cyclic like once a week? it's almost like doing a one on one coaching with somebody, right? like you're an athlete. Okay, you gotta start practicing. And what are you you know, what are you encountering? is your body injured from doing a certain task? You know, and on goes the story.
How do you how do you work with the with the team?
Katie (24:03)
Yes, so it's different. Some of them are one and done and then some of them are more longer term. I prefer the more longer term ones. I feel like the one and done people can get a lot of benefit out of it. I can teach them tools, give them really good resources, but people will naturally default into business as usual. you know, I'm also
qualified personal trainer, did that in New Zealand. And so I really understand the importance of accountability and where I can, I will have longer engagements so that I can be that kind of coach to make sure that people stay on track. Like last year was a really good mix of kind of one offs and also
longer engagements. I did kind of a, I was involved in a like an eight to 12 week program where I came in to help co-facilitate at different points to keep people on track, like two different stages of this process. And that was really good because you could see the momentum building up. So where I can,
It's a longer term engagement and being there for more accountability because I know it will stick, but it really depends on the organization's budget.
Bernie (25:15)
Yeah,
that makes sense. When should our organization go, hmm, this isn't working out so well? What what's the flags they should be paying attention to that goes, you know what, we've got to reach out to that young lady, Katie. we're we're hitting the wall. What are the flags they should be looking for?
Katie (25:31)
I think when teams are stuck, people get really quiet and people will sit on their work because they're stuck, spinning their wheels. that usually... One thing I've learned about teamwork from Christchurch is that the more dynamic it is, the better in a way where people are...
rallying around each other to solve problems. And that doesn't normally happen in like in organizations that I've worked with to some extent. Like people have their portion of work and they will sit on things and spin their wheels because they don't want to be seen to not know what they're doing.
that kind of human psychology of fear of judgment or fear of failure. so usually teams come to me when people are spinning their wheels, when they've tried something a few times and it hasn't worked, or they feel like the team isn't aligned and one person's going and doing this and somebody else is going and doing this and then.
There's a lot of rework involved in time and effort and energy that's been wasted. So they're usually the, they're usually the key things.
Bernie (26:35)
It's interesting you do the last little bit you're mentioning, you know, one person's going one direction, the other person's going the other direction, and you know, it's the the sum result is it's you know no further gain. Do you and if if they can say two different departments, and again I'm thinking back to to my days in corporate, right? You can have the finance department, the purchasing department, and then the facilities department. Facilities needs a a piece of product to get installed.
Finance going who well, who's the who's got the money? And then purchasing kicks in and says, we gotta do the procurement process, right? And you know, and if it's timely, it's it becomes a, you know, a little bit of a heartache and a headache to to have these things come together. And everybody's got a has a has a has a reason, a raise a raison dietra why they do what they do and and for good reason. And it's not just, you know, I I just want to block you. How do you how do you get that alignment kind of to come through?
In other words, to expedite it. You know, if you're in an emergency situation, it's really apparent, but if it's a longer term project but has a s significant impact to the organization, how do you get them to kind of align going, okay, you each have a a primary function, but we have to adapt. and you don't want to compromise the the morals or the ethics. how do how do you get them kind of working through that?
Katie (27:49)
think sometimes with Teams, sometimes things get lost in translation.
When I say I need to do this or I need this, somebody else might have a different picture of what that looks like. And so I found that getting people to agree on what the outcome is, like to understand what the outcome is and to help. If you understand what the outcome is, you know, in, in, in Newman centered design, design thinking,
like one of the tools that people use a lot is a customer journey map or a user journey map. And so you map out the process that needs to happen. And when it's all mapped out and visualed, people can see that really clearly and people can say, this is where you're going to have a bottleneck or this is where there's tension. This is where there's opportunity. This is where I need to come in. This is where you need to come in. And so laying that out gives people a good sense of
how do we need to move through this together? Who needs to come in where and how do we keep it moving? And what are kind of our trade-offs or kind of lag times on things that might take a little bit longer? That's probably the main thing. It's usually the fastest thing for me is getting the right people in the room to visualize something so that everyone understands what the process is or what the outcome needs to be.
Bernie (29:04)
I love communications. I I I it's you know, i especially when it's geared to the there's another person we've done a podcast with and he says, listen, I I deal with the people that have made tech and then they're gonna go look for money for that tech. Yeah, so looking for funding. And they he becomes the translator from tech speak to finance speak. So I I think that's that's kind of a kind of a key piece. And
I guess that would kind of be the essence if you're old and you're kind of doing that translation and getting to see the different pictures. Would that be a fair enough statement?
Katie (29:37)
Yeah, sometimes.
Bernie (29:37)
prototypes. So if someone comes up with an idea, you know, they're they're sitting back going, you know, there might be a better way to do something in it to approach a a common problem. And the driver might be cost effectiveness, time effectiveness, and labor effectiveness, or you know, it's just it's just better, better outcome for the for the client or guest. How do you bring forward something like, okay, we're not
We're not rebuilding a a whole city, but we're looking to improve. and it could be like how we lay pipe down f in in the future. how do you bring in a prototype that gets everybody on board? In other words, you're yeah, almost like R and D.
Katie (30:13)
I again, I would go back to in terms of bringing in a prototype.
I think sizing that prototype is one of the key things. If you have people that have a dedicated role to this, it's easier. But usually what I've found in organizations is people are being asked to do more with their same hours that they have. so sizing something right definitely
definitely important. Like does this person have two hours or three hours that they can do? What is the ultimate goal? And what is one thing, one aspect of that that we could prototype or test really quickly to prove that there's value in doing more of this. And so a lot of the times, you know, people have to write business cases for stuff like this to
to make sure that it gets more traction like further up. But having something where I have this idea and it's like design thinking and that whole mindset of show, don't tell is also very key because again, words get lost in translation and I could say a word, it could mean something very different to somebody else. And so the ability to be able to show, show, don't tell.
even something like with prototyping, it's like, if it's a service, you could do something like a wireframe or you could do something on software like Figma, which is kind of like a real kind of click through feel of, going through a website. And that doesn't take a lot of time and it can be scrappy, but it gives people a sense of something visual that they can like, can coach your feel or see and
and gives them a sense of, this thing could add value. So with prototypes, it's kind of about sizing, how can you show, tell, and how can you create the conditions, how can you create almost like a business case where people see the value in doing more of this thing.
Bernie (32:09)
So would it be fair to say then your role as a facilitator then would incorporate these elements? So if a company says, listen, we're running into a a situation or we're we're doing an evolution of of our workplace or review, whatever the case might be, that would be what you would do. You would gather all the necessary players and then provide deeper analysis.
Katie (32:32)
Yes, like specifically for ideation and potential prototyping, like I might do an ideation session and I usually invite people to come up with, you know, blue sky ideas, wild cards, kind of silly things, things that they probably hold in their mind, but they don't necessarily.
verbalize because they will stop themselves. They'll think of something that could be really cool. And then they say, no, that won't work because of X, Y, and Z. And so it never gets a chance to be tested or be evaluated. And so after an ideation session, to make it a little bit more concrete, I will sometimes do like an effort impact matrix, so a two by two matrix. And what are the things that are going to give us the biggest impact?
and what are the things that are kind of the least or the most amount of effort. And so the things that are in the box that are really high impact and low effort, which means that they take less time or resources, they're kind of like the low hanging fruit. They're the ones that like, okay, we could test these pretty quickly as a way to see if this is a solution to the challenge that we have.
Bernie (33:38)
Excellent. So
Engineer or Gardner, who's more patient under pressure?
Katie (33:42)
I think probably a gardener.
Bernie (33:47)
yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Katie (33:49)
There's so much you can't control with agriculture. It's so hard. I think that engineers need to come up with solutions faster because it's usually safety implications if there's an issue. And gardeners, whether you have lots of rain or you have no rain at all, you really have to
Yeah, patience is a big one. It's regarding.
Bernie (34:14)
What's the smallest change that creates momentum?
Katie (34:16)
I think in a team, people knowing that they're appreciated, like even a thank you from a manager or somebody else in the team saying, I really appreciate your work. I think that generates a lot of momentum really quickly. And it's such a small gesture.
Bernie (34:29)
Absolutely. So Katie, what part of the universe do you play in? Is it just East Coast, nationally, continental, global? Go play.
Katie (34:38)
Hopefully, hopefully global. At the moment, it's a lot of Atlantic Canada, some Ontario. I now have connections in Calgary, so I'm hoping to do a bit more work there. I'd love to have some clients in the States. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger. And yeah, so and Ireland, of course, I'd love to add value to.
my home country and I miss New Zealand. I would love to have an opportunity to get back there and work. yeah, I haven't limited myself with where I want to play.
Bernie (35:06)
Perfect. And if someone is seeking you out, two two quick questions. When should they reach out and how do they reach out to you?
Katie (35:12)
I'm very, I'm active on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is probably the best place to reach me, Katie Muldrew. Other than that, my email is katie at collective knot.com and very responsive to emails. So they're probably the two main places.
Bernie (35:28)
And what would be a immediate flag? Is it someone who is running into a problem looking to evolve into a they're upgrading or doing some sort of change? When should they reach out to you?
Katie (35:39)
Ideally, ideally at the start of a project, that would be great. But not halfway down the track when things have gone wrong. that's also a nice, a nice challenge or a value to add, like to help a team get back on course real quick. Usually at the start of a project. And I'm doing a lot of work now with team collaboration and the principles of collaboration, training around that.
And that's usually a really good foundation for starting projects. And then in terms of innovation, I guess it doesn't like at the start is best, but I can, I can jump in anywhere and help.
Bernie (36:13)
I want to say thank you to Katie Muldrew You know what, if you're gonna rebuild a a city due to an earthquake or other calamity, or you know, just looking to make your your space you know safer, healthier, getting people on board with projects, you maybe have some sort of major transition coming up.
Katie's there to help you get the collective knot in together, and bring bring your results in into focus and have the team work with you so everybody has the right results