Top podcasts to improve your job in Product Development, Product Design and UX Research (bonus: Engineering too)

10 podcasts for learning and professional development straight to your phone

Jan 14

We have shared podcasts that we listen to on a regular basis. They help with various challenges and develop skills needed at work. I find them an easy way to get information or inspiration. Listen to them on your walks/exercise, commute, cleaning or whenever you have downtime. It can contribute to incidental and incremental learning.

Tip: Listen to them at 1.3x speed and fast forward the ads. Some apps let you choose the various start times for your subscribed podcasts. It's a good way to skip the introductions and ads in the beginning.

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Source: XKCD

Podcasts about people management, productivity and communication

People skills

HBR Podcasts have great podcasts on people skills - such as people management or working with difficult stakeholders. Here’s a few I listen to regularly:

The Accidental Creative Podcast is labelled as a podcast for creatives - and yes Todd Henry does focus on that. In addition to it, there are good episodes on stakeholder management, self-management and guests to inspire you when you are in a rut.

An interesting one for navigating complex organisations and potential office politics is Taken for Granted.

Time and effort management

We have mentioned Cal Newport in a previous post. He follows a longer format. Cal takes time to answer real listeners' questions. He also shares his processes. This can give you ideas on how to change your work. His focus is on productivity. He focuses on being effective with your time, but not necessarily doing more.

Greg McKeown’s Essentialism podcast is named after his wildly successful book. He focuses on how to think about priorities and what is truly needed. Such a kind of thinking can help you tackle the objectives of your role and project and invest your time wisely.

Communication

Stanford is another university podcast that has a great series from their Graduate School of Business - Think Fast, Talk Smart. They cover communication in various forms and avenues.

Podcasts about UX Research

Here are some podcasts that cover and focus on UX Research methods, and operating a UX Research team inside an organisation. All of them include interesting guests from various organisations.

Podcasts on Product Management

I prefer to focus on the business side of product management. These podcasts are great to keep me up to date with emerging businesses, their strategy, business models, and challenges they faced.