Before we dig into some of the tools available in the market for product management , it is important to understand why do we need a product management tool and how is product management different from project management.
What is the difference between Product Management and Project Management?
Product Management involves focusing on the overall product success and making strategic decisions on what needs to be built next by prioritizing while Project Management involves focusing on the execution of the plan that has been prioritized.
Why do you need a Product management tool ?
We have been using product development tools like JIRA, Azure devOps for day to day tracking of projects but they don’t suffice the need when it comes to managing the overall roadmap, vision and customer pain points for the product. Product development tools are good for execution but not for the planning . It does not give us the view and resources on what are the user needs ,what are the customer priorities and what needs to be build next. We need a tool to effectively manage the product right from conception to implementation. This gap can be filled with a product management tool.
What a good Product management tool should have?
An ideal product management tool should provide the ability to :
- Intake – where the Ideas from different stakeholders can be collected and tracked
- Validate -where the Ideas can be validated
- Prioritize – where the ideas can be Prioritized and put into the product roadmap
- Integrate – which enables Integration with downstream development tools like JIRA
- Build Reports – where dashboard and reports can be built to see the overall product portfolio
“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”
― Richard Buckminster Fuller
What are the best Product Management Tools and their PROs and CONs?
Have shortlisted some of the tools which can be leveraged for product management :
1. ProductBoard
ProductBoard is the product management tool that can really make a product manager life easy. Some of the features that stand out are:
- Insight board to consolidate product ideas, requests ,research and feedback from multiple sources
- Feature Voting Portal to validate your ideas
- Product Hierarchy (Product > Component >EPIC > Story)
- RoadMap Views (Company roadmap , team roadmap , ability to add new view)
- Track Key deliverable and milestones
- Prioritization using MoSCOW
- Release Planning
- Project Tracking
- Push features into development tools like JIRA and monitor their status from one place
Integrations – Slack, JIRA, trello, Github and pivotal tracker
Pros – User friendly and easy interface , Idea collection and validation , Customized view at both the roadmap and features level for different audience
Cons – No mobile app and lack of reporting module.
2. Monday
Monday is a platform to manage the product and project seamlessly for a variety of industries worldwide. Some of the best features on Monday are listed below :
- Plan Roadmap
- Project Management and Tracking
- Predefined templates for Change Management
- Collaborate on deliverables
- Automated Notification
- Report on results
- Shared Team Calendar
- Document Storage
It is ideal for task management and project management and make team collaboration and communication very smooth as all the information is managed on the single dashboard. Product management is one of the aspect that can be managed leveraging this features.
Integration – Zoom , Slack , Zendesk, Typeform , JIRA ,Excel , Salesforce, Microsoft Teams , Dropbox, Trello
Pros – User friendly and easy to use , lot of predefined templates , Dashboard and Reporting
Cons – tiered pricing structure can be Expensive, no module to collect user feedback or validate ideas , focused more on project collaboration rather than product
3. Aha!
Aha! is an extensive and comprehensive tool to build roadmaps and deliver better product , project and services.
- Well Structured platform to plan Product Strategy , Strategy Initiatives and Goals
- Idea capture and Voting portal
- Capture Personas of the customer (Strategy module)
- Plan Releases and Features
- Features Prioritization using strategic importance
- Plan and visualize Roadmap
- Reporting Module
- Dashboards can be shared using notebooks (easy to click through format)
- Easy to tweak plans or make changes from the Reports view
Integration – JIRA, Azure DevOps, Salesforce ,Rally , REDMINE, Github , Trello, confluence , slack , Zendesk, Zapier , Okta , Google Analytics
Pros – Ability to capture features and ideas , guides user with best product management practices , well-structured approach, Shared knowledge base, Ability to create Mockup Dashboard and Reporting
Cons – UI is crowded and is not very intuitive , longer learning curve to fit team needs, No Report templates , workflow creation and visualization is difficult due to cluttered view , workflow needs optimization( like adding milestones, EPICs)
Before making a decision it is worth evaluating all the tools and see what works best for your team and organisation. One of the most important factor to consider is how well the product management tool can be integrated with the existing tool set that the organisation is using.
All the above tools comes with a trial period so before deciding to subscribe for a plan see it for yourself or schedule a demo with the team. Give a shout out if you would want to discuss about them. You can connect me with on twitter at @_Iamakansha_
Comparison of Top Product Management Tools
Below is the feature comparison to help you decide between Product Board Vs Aha! Vs Monday
| Parameters | Product Board | Aha! | Monday |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intake (Ideas and Features) Module | YES | YES | NO |
| Roadmap | YES | YES | YES |
| Prioritization | YES | YES | YES |
| Release Planning | YES | YES | YES |
| Project Tracking | YES | YES | YES |
| Workflow Management | YES | YES | YES |
| Dashboard and Reporting | NO | YES | YES |
| Idea Voting Portal | YES | YES | NO |
| Integration – Development Tool | JIRA | JIRA | JIRA |
| Integration – Communication | Slack | Slack , Teams | Slack , Teams |
| Web/Installed | Cloud | Cloud | Cloud, Windows, Mac |
| Mobile App | NO | iOS , Android | iOS , Android |
| Subscription Based | YES | YES | YES |
| Free Trial Available | 15days | 30days | 7days |
| Pricing for 5 users (**as of May-2020) | 49$/month | 59 $/month | 39$/month |
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