The end of the year is when I dedicate a disproportionately high amount of time towards planning and reflection when compared to the rest of the year. And all of this planning and reflection is directed towards development - both professional and personal. 

In that context, I had a conversation for my podcast, Product Stories, with Shesh Vasudevamurthy, who is a product EXECUTIVE coach. 

Shesh has over two decades of experience in Product Management, Strategy Consulting, Product Marketing and Engineering roles. In recent years, he has played product leadership roles at Amazon and Walmart, and has been an active coach, mentoring product managers and senior executives in the industry. And in this episode, we talk about coaching, mentoring and professional development for product managers.

Some of the topics that we discuss in the conversation are:

• How to take a deliberate approach towards our professional development
• Why simply learning on the job is not enough and we ought to be doing more
• How to define and articulate professional development goals for ourselves
• Some tips and techniques to effectively execute on the professional development goals we set
• How to utilise a manager, a mentor and a coach for our development as well as the difference in each of those three roles
• Common development approaches for picking up core product management skillsets at various levels of experience
• Advise for first time mentors and managers