10 Best Product Management Tools the Top Product Managers Love

When it comes to product management, teams tend to rely on product stacks that come loaded with dedicated tools. Such product manager tools help managers in doing the following five things-

1.     Building roadmaps
2.     Time tracking
3.     Prioritization
4.     Customer feedback
5.     Analytics

There are more such uses for product manager tools depending on the team and the project involved to simplify tasks. Product management is not a cakewalk; hence, product management tools are incorporated to enhance the process for optimum performance. 

Understanding The Need For Product Management Tools

Product development needs a cohesive team to begin with. The team, in turn, must have a defined objective. Once the resources are implemented in their respective roles, product management tools further assist them in doing their tasks right. Product managers must remember that every product development cycle is different from the other. However, a product management tool stack could help tackle them all if implemented in teh right manner. The biggest benefit of these management tools is that they aid team members in achieving all goals over the short or long term.

The most common tool product development teams leverage helps them with processes like:-

•               Communicating and Collaborating– Teamwork needs solid communication. Therefore, product managers need to have a central resource to stay connected. For example, Think, Teams and Slack.
•               Road Mapping– From a roadmap for products to that for technology or/and marketing, product teams will always need a primary truth source for their development timeline. For example, airfocus and Zoho Sprints.
•               Project Tracking– For any product team, tracking individual tasks as well as stories is very much a part of the development process. Sone of the project tracking tools includes ClickUP and Jira.
•               Customer Surveying– As a product team, you must take up feedback directly from the existing users or test users when you are testing and developing new features. Customer surveying tools include tools like Typeform.
•               Heat Mapping– Heat maps help a product team understand how the end users interact with a product’s key features. Software for heat mapping aids teams in recording as well as analyzing results. For example, Mouseflow and Smartlook.

Explore our MBA Programs in The US

Choosing The Product Management Tools Best For You

When you pick a product management tool for the team, you must assess the scale, size, and stage of development involved with the product. For instance, a product might be pre-alpha. In that case, it might have no version available on the market. Therefore, analytics as a tool for the product will be irrelevant. Here’s what you can do to find the most suitable product manager tools.

1. Take baby steps by reviewing the progress level of the team and then decide on the areas needing support from dedicated tools.
2. At the next stage, you must weigh the product development budget for the best project management software or related needs. Once you have the entire budget scale in mind, you will need to understand the priority investments.
3. Sometimes, a little bit of bootstrapping might do you good. Primarily, the chief motive must be to prioritize things around the lifecycle development. A product manager is a ninja who knows how to align people with processes and management.
4. A product toll or even a template alone will never be able to save you if you are not sure about how to place your product. It is always in a state of discovery, and only objectives must be static. The product roadmap or the product is never static.
5. Whenever a product manager uses any product manager tools or even the best project management software in the market, the goal remains to get close to a customer. In case managers get to reflect the preferences of consumers, as well as the market tailwinds for the products, better subscription numbers, and active users are sure to follow!

Now the tricky bit is that a customer is mostly busy. This means that any meaningful data collection per their preference and habits will be tricky. With the growing demands in terms of the time of product managers, the need for product management tools and task management software is supposed to be more pronounced.

Leading project management software and tool are the only way to keep product-related projects on track while also helping meet the rapidly changing demands of the market.

Since each step of the product development process needs a specific tool, you need to have a grasp over the ten best product management tools needed now!

airfocus- Modular Tool For Product Management Software

airfocus is your top pick in this context since it is custom-made for teams to help them manage portfolios and products—both market-oriented and internal. With its platform flexibility, teams can manage user demand, prioritization, strategy, and roadmap alignment well.

AXURE- Tool For Design

Create quick diagrams and access custom libraries to create mock-ups with Axure. Everything gets easier with this top design or wireframing tool, from wireframes to flowcharts to idea boards and personas.

Learn Management Courses from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career.

ADOBE- Tool For Use Experience

Get to know how your users are behaving and move on to optimize the digital experiences. The top features that are the highlights of this tool are personalized automation and UX-testing that is AI-backed.

INTERACTION STUDIO-Tool For User Onboarding

Tap the power of machine learning to interact with your prospects and existing users across channels. Such is the power of this tool for product managers.

AMPLITUDE and PENDO- Tools For Analysis And Tracking

Tools for the above purpose are sources of insight and intelligence into how users of your software or even a website engage with the product and content. While interviews and survey of customers are vital tools that let you know what a customer thinks, platforms for product analysis lets you analyze what your customers are doing. Deploying a tool such as Amplitude and Pendo will help uncover vital realities around what best resonates with users and what doesn’t work.

PRODUCTPLAN-Tool For Road Mapping

Software for road mapping is a must-have on the list of top product management tools. When you use a non-native application for drafting and maintaining a product roadmap, you get to create more work and also turn out to be less flexible. The ease of sharing also goes down. A viable tool in this context and purpose is ProductPlan. It helps teams quickly build and collaborate on the roadmaps for products. Product managers believe that collaborating and building visual and interactive roadmaps is a more effective way of communicating product strategy. Naturally, this helps to align teams around the product vision.

MONDAY.COM- Tool For Scalability

Monday.com is a popular tool for product management online. This platform enables teams of various sizes to plan, track, and manage work daily. Even if the context is enormous scope for a product roadmap or even a weekly iteration, Monday.com aids teams in gaining clear ownership. At the same time, its agile platform ensures simpler teamwork from just about anywhere.

The OS for Monday.com stands built based on visual and flexible features.  These eventually come together to create an agile workflow for all team needs. Additionally, it also supports Gantt and Kanban views, milestones, task dependencies, and project analysis.

WALLING- Tool Visual Organization For Project Tasks

Visualize your tasks and ideas in a side-by-side mode with Walling. This is a very visual platform for product management that helps teams to organize as well as manage ideas plus tasks within clean interfaces. Idea collection and organization become a tad bit easier with Walling. You get to almost frame a picture of what your work currently looks like. You also get to access tables for databases, task lists, and Kanban view.

TRELLO- Tool For Prioritizing

As a product manager, the best pick among the product management tools would be one that allows you to know what possibilities are at hand while also understanding what possibility to drop! Trello is your dependable bet in this regard. Collaborating, project management, and productivity peaks—all stand guaranteed with Trello. With this at hand, forget to think about any other task management software.

The Key Takeaway

The primary key in this context is intentional and very clear communication. This is needed well within the internal team and all teams engaged in design and engineering. The company stakeholders, too, must be on the same page. Hence, implementing product management tools is a sure-shot way for product managers to enhance clear communication within the team and ensure quick deliveries with precision. 

If you’re hoping to step into product management or upskill your product management role to climb another corporate ladder, upGrad’s Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management can be an exceptional opportunity. With a detailed curriculum curated by industry professionals, you get to keep up with the latest product management skills and tools, helping you to bag lucrative opportunities in this competitive market!