I have spent a year now working with PMs in my team on their career dev plans. I have seen our 1-1s evolve. We have done endless gap analysis and discussed growth plans. I have also mentored a few other PMs in Gojek. Since I have enjoyed the experience so far I have decided to mentor a small group of early PMs.

What I am thinking:

  1. Start with an hour monthly. It can be a single 1 hour or 2 half-hour slots every 2 weeks.
  2. We will use the same doc I use for structured 1-1s with the PMs in my team.
  3. A longer career dev plan will be discussed each quarter. We will focus on all the aspects mentioned here: Career development plan for PMs.
  4. Unlike Aristos which had a batch size of 5, this time I don’t have a number in mind. I will just mentor a few people based on my availability.
  5. I don’t have a time period in mind for this engagement. We can start with 3 months and see if this is helpful. If yes, we will continue. Else, we will just move on.

Basically, I will use the same docs/processes I use for running my team but instead of a PM in my team, I will be focused on your growth. This program won’t be as intense as Aristos. This will be more of a coaching/mentorship session than me pushing you to read X articles/books by the next session.

Why I am doing this?

  1. As I grow in my own career, I hope this will help me become a better mentor/coach/manager.
  2. I want to help others. I have a few mentors in my life and I want to pay it forward.
  3. It will help me connect and work with a bunch of promising PMs early in their career. If I ever need to hire people or recommend PMs to friends, I can have a pool of promising folks.
  4. A lot of startups don’t provide the mentorship required by beginner PMs and I think this program can help fill the gap.

Who you should be?

  1. Early PM; You should be already working as a PM. This program is not for people looking to get into Product Management.
  2. Hungry to grow; You should be someone aspires to be the best in your domain.
  3. Read books/blogs; You should be willing to read more books on your craft. Learning never stops in our field and getting a PM job is the start and not the end of your career.

What do you need to do?

  1. Send me a DM on Twitter explaining how you think this will be helpful for you. Write about what you are looking for in a mentor. Send the last book you read related to your job.
  2. If you want to learn how to do cold DMs better, especially when it comes to requesting referrals or mentorship, listen from around 12:30 mark of this podcast till around 23 min.
  3. Take this seriously. Come prepared for our sessions. If we don’t find this useful, we will part our ways.

Interesting read: Athena

Update: I have already said Yes to a few people. Not taking in any more folks. Thanks.