Inside SEP: Product Strategy and Innovation

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This is a podcast episode titled, Inside SEP: Product Strategy and Innovation. The summary for this episode is: In this episode, our guests are <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisshinkle/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chris Shinkle</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/croninmike/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mike Cronin</a> 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:<ul><li>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</li><li>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</li><li>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</li></ul> We'd love to hear from you! Reach out to <a href="https://app.casted.us/account/62/shows/81b7557b-52e8-4ea3-87b9-a8f2cdaa00e4/episodes/9b8e5049-3269-4d01-a208-ec35aa12083d/podcast@sep.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">podcast@sep.com</a> to share your feedback on this show.You can find more information about this podcast at <a href="https://app.casted.us/account/62/shows/81b7557b-52e8-4ea3-87b9-a8f2cdaa00e4/episodes/93ecce9c-0530-4661-a507-b77e2748f4ee/sep.com/podcast" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sep.com/podcast</a> and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Key Takeaways

How SEP thinks about Product Strategy

00:48 MIN

DESCRIPTION

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

We'd love to hear from you! Reach out to podcast@sep.com to share your feedback on this show.

You can find more information about this podcast at sep.com/podcast and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Today's Host

Zac Darnell

|Host of Behind The Product & Principal at SEP

Today's Guests

Mike Cronin

|Engagement Manager, SEP

With 20 years of project and technology management experience in the Information Technology field, he helps identify business opportunities and solve business challenges. Leverage technology to solve each customer’s unique business situation. His efforts the past 10+ years have been on business systems (B2B, B2C, Business to partner, Business internal, Mobile) with an emphasis on reducing complexities. As part of his role at SEP, he leads the Product Strategy and Innovation group to help customers clarify and refine the strategy for creating their product ideas and initiatives.

Chris Shinkle

|Director of Innovation, SEP

Chris has worked with SEP since 1997 in roles ranging from software engineer to recruiter to development manager. He has experience customizing and fitting process models to many different domains including aerospace, defense, medical, consumer electronics, and automotive. He has used Agile and Lean methods to lead large complex projects, most notably, a military aircraft engine monitoring and maintenance system and an FDA regulated remote patient monitoring system. He introduced FDD to SEP in 2004, and then continued to evolve the internal processes and approaches over the following years. In 2007, SEP began to adopt Kanban processes under Chris' guidance, as he trained and mentored engineers across the company. In his current role, he is focused on helping customers find clarity and develop product strategy in their pursuits.