What are product management tools?
Product management tools is a term that refers to the means product managers acquire to lead the product development process.
Typically, product management teams would rely on a product stack that includes dedicated tools for road mapping, prioritizing, product analytics, time tracking, and customer feedback, among others (and more, depending on the team).
The Importance Of Product Management Tools
Creating digital products from scratch is a challenging endeavor that necessitates a cohesive team, a clearly defined goal, and the appropriate tools for the job. Although all product development cycles are unique, product management tool stacks are often the same from company to company. These product management tools assist team members in achieving their short and long-term objectives, whether it’s staying in touch or staying on schedule.
It’s no easy task to take a product or a project from concept to completion. As a product manager, you are entitled to your toolbox to assist you in completing all of the tasks required to deliver a product to market. Setting strategy, designing and sharing plans, prototyping, assisting with customer onboarding, analyzing user behavior, and getting consumer feedback are all part of this process.
The Benefits Of A Vast Product Management Tools
When we discuss product management tools, we usually refer to the essential tools that most product managers utilize daily. Product analytics, development tracking, and road mapping software are all product management technologies.
However, a product manager’s role entails much more than gathering product information, keeping track of the backlog, and monitoring the product plan.
How to Choose Product Management Tools
As far as PPM goes, the key question is – What should be included in your product management toolkit? As we’ve discussed, various teams have distinct requirements for their product development process, yet there is a great deal of overlap between them.
To illustrate, below are some examples of the types of tools that critical members of a product development team might have at their disposal:
Toolkits for collaboration and communication Because effective teamwork is impossible without effective communication, digital tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams serve as crucial hubs for product managers to stay in touch.
Software for road mapping
Product teams want a single source of truth for the development timetable, whether it’s a product roadmap, marketing roadmap, technology roadmap, etc.
Hers are some examples of product management tools:
Tools for keeping track of projects
Product teams need to be able to track individual tasks and stories as part of the development process and the roadmap. In this case, product management would utilize project management tools such as Jira and Trello, Asana, and even air focus.
Tools for conducting customer surveys
As part of the development and testing process, product teams must gather input from existing and test users. Survey platforms enable product teams to do so at crucial points throughout the user interface (UI) and the overall development cycle.
Software for heat mapping
Heatmaps enable product teams to understand how end-users interact with critical features, and heat mapping software helps them record and evaluate the results of these interactions.
How to select the most appropriate product management tool for your needs
An essential step in choosing the best product management solutions for your team is to accurately assess your product team’s size, scale, and developmental stage.
For example, if a product is in pre-alpha and does not yet have a commercially available version, employing analytics tools to determine current utilization levels will be ineffective. As a result, the first step is to assess the team’s existing development and determine which specific areas require the assistance of a dedicated tool.
After that, think about the budget for the product development process: what can you afford to invest in, and what will you need to bootstrap a little more? This is similar to prioritizing what is essential — and what doesn’t — about the development lifecycle, which you’ll do with your roadmap.
If you’re not sure whether or not you need a specific tool, don’t be hesitant to put it through its paces. If your product team requires that item to perform its duties effectively, don’t worry. They’ll let you know.
