Grounded in Experience, Diagnostics, and Continuous Learning

Sequent Learning Networks was founded to help organizations strengthen product management as a business function, not a passing methodology.

For more than two decades our work has been shaped not only by hands-on leadership experience, but by diagnosing, benchmarking, and working inside hundreds of organizations across industries. This exposure has provided a rare longitudinal view into what really works, and what consistently fails, when companies attempt to organize around products.

Our leadership perspective is grounded in practice, informed by data, and refined continuously through real organizational work.

The Evolution Story: From Training Provider to Capability Builder

Foundedby Steven Haines, a founding member of Oracle’s CRM division and author of 11 books on product management, business acumen, and strategic thinking, Sequent Learning Networks has trained over 30,000 professionals across six continents.

For more than two decades, we’ve viewed organizations from unique vantage points: We don’t just work inside one company. We’ve conducted thousands of competency assessments, hundreds of organizational diagnostics, and benchmarking studies across industries. We’ve watched which organizations achieve lasting performance improvement and which return to old patterns despite significant training investment.

The pattern is clear:

• Training changes what people know.
• Capability changes what organizations can do.

The companies achieving real results weren’t just sending people to courses. They were:

• Aligning leadership on expectations and decision rights
• Building business acumen across product and technical teams
• Strengthening organizational practices that enable execution
• Connecting product management, business thinking, and strategic decision-making

This is why Sequent now focuses on building organizational capability through integrated product management training, business acumen training, strategic thinking training, and diagnostic assessments, not delivering isolated courses.

Steven Haines

Founder & Managing Director

Steven Haines is the founder of Sequent Learning Networks and a recognized authority in product management, business acumen, and strategic thinking.

For more than 20 years, Steven has worked with senior leadership teams, product organizations, and HR and L&D functions to improve how product decisions are made, funded, and executed. His experience spans direct leadership roles as well as deep diagnostic and advisory work across complex enterprises.

Steven is the author of multiple books used globally by product leaders and organizations, including:

• The Product Manager’s Desk Reference (3^rd edition)
• The Business Acumen Handbook
• Product Strategy and Roadmapping
• The Product Manager’s Survival Guide (2^nd edition)
• Strategic Thinking in Action
• Leading Product Management

… and five others on product management and leadership

Learning Across Organizations, Not Just Within One

A defining characteristic of Sequent’s leadership is exposure to patterns across organizations, not just experience inside a single company.

Through decades of:

• Product management competency assessments
• Business acumen benchmarking
• Product management organizational diagnostics

…we have observed how different structures, incentives, operating models, and leadership behaviors affect product performance over time.

This perspective allows us to help leaders avoid common traps, recognize systemic issues early, and make more informed organizational design choices.

A Steady Hand in a World of Fads

Product management, like many disciplines, is frequently disrupted by new terminology, tools, and trends such as Agile transformations, AI-driven workflows, new role definitions, and shifting delivery models.

Sequent takes a deliberately steady approach. We focus on:

• Product management as a business discipline, not a toolkit
• Decision quality over process compliance
• Organizational clarity over role proliferation
• Long-term capability over short-term trend adoption

This perspective helps leaders organize more effectively around product management — regardless of methodology, tooling, or technology cycles.

Leadership That Shows Up in the Work

Sequent’s leadership is reflected directly in our:

• Capability models
• Training programs
• Assessments and diagnostics
• Advisory engagements

Our goal is not to promote a personality or brand, but to provide organizations with a clear, durable foundation for building product management capability that lasts.