Libsyn Directory

Flow Analytics and AI-Powered Process Optimisation: How to See Where Your Delivery Is Breaking Down with Sonya Siderova

Release Date: 04/28/2026

Why AI Implementation Fails When Organisations Move Faster Than They Can Govern

Wicked Problems Podcast

This long-form episode of Wicked Problems is a practical conversation about AI adoption after the initial hype. Toby Corballis and Marcellus Lindsay look beyond the promise of automation and ask what happens when AI is introduced into organisations that cannot yet govern its cost, risk, data, accountability or human impact. The discussion moves between real-world implementation, change leadership, AI literacy, trust, hallucinations, token costs, agentic AI, and the familiar pattern of technology running ahead of organisational capability. The point is not that leaders should avoid AI. It is...

Digital Transformation in Professional Services: What Consultants See That You Don't with Winnie Barnwell

Wicked Problems Podcast

Is your firm spending money on new software when the real problem is hiding in plain sight, inside the processes, handovers, and habits your team has quietly built around a broken system? In this episode, Toby Corballis is joined by Winnie Barnwell, a digital transformation consultant and project and change manager who works primarily with law firms and professional services businesses. Winnie brings a structured, diagnostic approach to operational improvement, helping organisations understand not just what is going wrong, but why, and what to do about it in a way that actually sticks....

Moldable Development and Glamorous Toolkit: How to Make Your Software System Explain Itself

Wicked Problems Podcast

Are your engineering decisions based on what your system actually does, or on what your team believes it does? Most software teams are navigating in the dark. Developers spend more than half their time reading code, yet reading doesn't scale, and it rarely produces accurate decisions. As AI tools generate code faster than ever, the problem is getting worse, not better. This episode challenges the assumption that delegating understanding to AI is the answer. Tudor Girba is the co-creator of Moldable Development and the Glamorous Toolkit, and a co-founder of Feenk, the research company behind...

Decarbonising Heavy Industry: How Perocycle's Closed Carbon Loop Could Transform Steel Production

Wicked Problems Podcast

Is the steel industry's carbon problem actually a resource problem in disguise? In this episode of Wicked Problems, we explore one of the most promising, and least-discussed, frontiers in industrial decarbonisation. Dr Harriet Kildahl is the CTO and co-founder of Perocycle, a deep tech spin-out from the University of Birmingham focused on eliminating carbon emissions from heavy industry through a closed-loop thermochemical process. As a chemical engineer and entrepreneur with a background in pioneering industrial decarbonisation, Harriet brings both the scientific rigour and the commercial...

Wardley Maps Explained: How to Read Your Industry Landscape and Build Strategy That Holds

Wicked Problems Podcast

Is your strategy a vision built on solid foundations , or a story you’ve told yourself with nothing underneath it? And if the industry shifted tomorrow, would you even see it coming? This episode of Wicked Problems goes deep on Wardley Mapping , one of the most rigorous and underused frameworks in strategy today. Simon Wardley, the creator of Wardley Maps, joins the show to explain how the methodology works, where it came from, and why most of what businesses call a “map” is actually just a graph. Simon’s path to mapping began not in a consulting firm or business school, but in a...

Flow Analytics and AI-Powered Process Optimisation: How to See Where Your Delivery Is Breaking Down with Sonya Siderova

Wicked Problems Podcast

Are your teams working flat out, but delivery still feels slow, unpredictable, and hard to explain to stakeholders? In this episode of Wicked Problems, Toby speaks with Sonya Siderova, founder and CEO of NAVE, a flow analytics platform that helps software and delivery teams identify process bottlenecks, reduce cycle times, and make performance visible through data. Sonya brings over a decade of experience in software development, product management, and process optimisation. NAVE has been on the market for eight years and was built around a simple but powerful observation: the problems slowing...

Claire Miller: How EVs Could Pay Your Energy Bills

Wicked Problems Podcast

Electric vehicles aren’t just for driving — they’re powerful batteries on wheels. In this clip, Claire Miller breaks down how new V2G (vehicle-to-grid) technology could let you earn money by simply keeping your EV plugged in. From smart tariffs to grid balancing, this is the future of energy — and it’s already rolling out.

Guy Haydon - From EVs to EPs: Guy Hayden on Electrifying Air Travel

Wicked Problems Podcast

Join us on Wicked Problems as we explore the groundbreaking world of electric aircraft with Guy Hayden, Chief Commercial Officer at Aerovolt. Discover the challenges and innovations driving this nascent industry, from lightweight aircraft to electric vertical take-off taxis. Guy shares exclusive insights into the first public electric aircraft charging network, the parallels with early EV development, and what the future of sustainable aviation could hold. Plus, don’t miss hints about a thrilling race between an electric car and a plane! Guy Haydon is the Chief Commercial Officer at...

Chris Pateman-Jones - The Key to Equitable EV Charging with Connected Kerb

Wicked Problems Podcast

Chris Pateman-Jones, CEO of Connected Kerb, discusses the company’s efforts to build one of the fastest-growing public EV charging networks in the UK. Connected Kerb focuses on making charging infrastructure equitable, reliable, and accessible, particularly for drivers without home charging. Chris highlights challenges like land access, grid constraints, and government policy, and shares how AI and modular designs are shaping the future of EV charging. Chris Pateman-Jones, Chief Executive Officer: Experienced infrastructure executive with extensive commercial, innovation and strategy...

Melanie Shufflebotham - Mapping the EV Charging Landscape

Wicked Problems Podcast

Melanie Shufflebotham, co-founder and COO of Zap-Map, the UK’s leading app for electric vehicle (EV) drivers to locate charging stations and plan trips, shares Zap-Map's journey from a basic Google Map overlay in 2014 to a robust platform with live data, user reviews, and payment options. Zap-Map also supports businesses and local authorities with insights into EV charging trends to prepare for a sustainable, electrified future; Melanie Shufflebotham is the co-founder and COO of Zapmap, the UK’s leading EV mapping app. Having worked in the space for over ten years, Melanie is an...

More Episodes

Are your teams working flat out, but delivery still feels slow, unpredictable, and hard to explain to stakeholders?

In this episode of Wicked Problems, Toby speaks with Sonya Siderova, founder and CEO of NAVE, a flow analytics platform that helps software and delivery teams identify process bottlenecks, reduce cycle times, and make performance visible through data. Sonya brings over a decade of experience in software development, product management, and process optimisation.

NAVE has been on the market for eight years and was built around a simple but powerful observation: the problems slowing your teams down are usually invisible, and the instinct to push people harder makes them worse, not better.

What We Cover

Why optimising for busyness actively hinders your delivery process, and what to focus on instead
How flow analytics reveals that 70% of work time is often spent waiting, not being worked on
The mindset shift from managing people to managing the flow of work through a system
Why 'stop starting, start finishing' is so difficult for management to accept, and how data makes the case
How NAVE's AI layer translates complex flow metrics into plain-language narratives for non-technical stakeholders
Why deploying AI upstream of an unresolved bottleneck makes the bottleneck significantly worse
How to use flow data to have strategic conversations about reprioritisation and work in progress limits
What reports from Atlassian, MIT, and Oxford reveal about why AI initiatives are hitting problems in delivery teams

Whether you are a transformation lead trying to build the case for change, an engineering manager looking to improve predictability, or a consultant working with delivery teams, this episode gives you a clear framework for understanding where work is really getting stuck and how to talk about it in language that resonates with leadership.

Chapters

00:00 — Why AI Amplifies Broken Processes, Not Just Good Ones

00:21 — Introducing NAVE and the Series on Transformation Tools

02:34 — What Flow Analytics Actually Measures

04:30 — The 70/30 Problem: Most Work Time Is Waiting, Not Working

06:02 — Why Keeping People Busy Is Killing Your Delivery

07:17 — Getting Comfortable With Data and a Different Way of Working

10:00 — Stop Starting, Start Finishing: The Management Mindset Shift

19:00 — How NAVE's AI Turns Flow Metrics Into Plain-Language Narratives

27:04 — Your Job Is Now the Change Work, Not the Data Translation

29:35 — The Bottleneck Problem: What Happens When You Speed Up the Wrong Thing

Resources