Episode 54 | May 31, 2024

Inside SEP: Product Strategy and Innovation

Inside SEP: Product Strategy and Innovation

In this episode, our guests are Chris Shinkle and Mike Cronin from SEP to discuss how the company approaches product strategy engagements with clients. They explain SEP’s philosophy of clarifying the problem, defining a guiding policy, and outlining coherent actions – going beyond just creating a PowerPoint strategy deck. They share examples of helping clients align stakeholders, refine roadmaps to reflect the true strategy, and rapidly validate technical feasibility through prototyping. They emphasize the importance of a roadmap as a “prototype of strategy” and a starting point for productive strategy conversations. Some key points:

  • Many clients come to SEP with a broad idea or goal for a product, but lack clarity on the specific challenge, approach, and steps needed to execute successfully
  • A major differentiator for SEP is rapidly validating the technical feasibility of the roadmap through prototyping and proof-of-concepts, giving clients confidence in their ability to deliver the strategy
  • Product strategy involves understanding the problem to be solved, having a guiding policy on how to approach it, and defining a coherent set of actions to take

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Episode Guests

Mike Cronin

Mike Cronin

VP, Service Delivery

As Vice President of Service Delivery, Mike Cronin helps SEP teams and clients stay focused on what matters most—building strong partnerships, simplifying complexity, and delivering high-impact solutions. He leads a team of Engagement Managers and drives SEP’s Strategy and Innovation practice.

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Chris Shinkle

Chris Shinkle

Director of Innovation

Chris leads innovation at SEP with a practical, experience-driven approach shaped by decades of building complex products across regulated and high-stakes industries. As an early champion of Agile, Lean, and Kanban at SEP, he helps teams navigate complexity and deliver software that holds up in production.

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Episode Host

Zac Darnell

Zac Darnell

Engagement Manager

Zac’s professional journey blends hands-on product development expertise with strategic leadership in consulting and technology, laying the groundwork for his current role at SEP.

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