Best Product Management Tools: Make the Right Choice for Your Business
A product manager wears multiple hats within a product management team. From capturing innovative ideas to developing a robust product strategy to coordinating complicated processes and workflows, their responsibilities are manifold. That’s where the best product management tools come into play, helping them organize and manage their tasks.
However, given the number of tools available to streamline product management, searching for the right one for your needs and, then, learning how to use it efficiently is an arduous task. To make this easier, here’s a list of the best product management tools for you to choose from to make your work life easier.
Best Product Management Tools List
Product management tools help a product manager to monitor the day-to-day tasks of their team while keeping an eye on the product development process. Here’s a list of the best product management tools available in the market today, along with their respective pros and cons.
1. ClickUp
ClickUp is an all-in-one tool that can help the product management team plan, track and collaborate efficiently on any project.
Pros
- The software is free and its interface is user-friendly
- It can store all company-related doc files and projects at one place
- It helps facilitate a smooth monitoring of the team’s daily activities
Cons
- It can prove to be time-consuming to keep track of the start and completion dates of multiple projects
- ClickUp’s desktop version takes time to load
2. Pivotal Tracker
Pivotal Tracker is software for managing Agile projects. It has some helpful features such as file sharing, notifications, mentions and following, and project history for defining user stories and analyzing how well an Agile team is doing.
Pros
- It allows users to keep track of every task
- The interface is user-friendly
Cons
- It’s not flexible enough
- Customization can be difficult
3. Airfocus
Airfocus has a modern and modular platform for managing products. It is a holistic solution that helps design and share the product strategy within the team, prioritize work, build roadmaps, and receive feedback from the product manager to resolve product-related challenges.
Pros
- It can easily align all team members on one platform
- It helps them listen to the customers and solve their issues
Cons
- The timeline features may not match user expectations
- Airfocus is not compatible with JIRA, a tool meant to plan, track, and manage your Agile and software development projects
4. Craft.io
Craft.io enables product managers to manage every aspect of the lifecycle of their digital products, from feature definition and feedback gathering to prioritization, capacity planning, road mapping, and portfolio management.
Pros
- It provides an objective-driven-roadmap for product management
- It helps to create a product management strategy
Cons
- It doesn’t have the ability for a separate category-specific questionnaire. For example, questionnaire A for bugs, questionnaire B for ideas, etc
- The initial setup of this tool is challenging
5. Monday.com
Monday.com is a cloud-based open platform that enables customers to build their own customized project management tools and applications as per their requirements.
Pros
- Customer support is quick to respond
- It can track the sales process
Cons
- It is incompatible with Excel
- Slightly expensive for smaller businesses
How to Pick the Right Product Management Tools
As we have seen, a wide variety of tools are available for a product manager’s use. Here are some tips that can be beneficial for you to select the right tools for your work.
- Think about what you need: A product manager should make a list of essential requirements while selecting the best product management tools
- Easy-to-learn: A product manager should select those tools that are easy to learn and use for their team members
- Presence of essential features: The best product management tools must have some essential features such as task management, time tracking, file sharing, note-making, and online proofing
- Define your product strategy: A well-defined product strategy is critical to determining the right product management tool for your business
ALSO READ: What is Product Management and Why it is a Great Career Choice
Why Learn Product Management Tools
Here are some important reasons that make you understand why learning product management tools is important for you:
- To identify the best product management strategy of a product
- To analyze the customer reaction to the product
- To research about the target customer
- To identify issues on the product
How Emeritus Can Boost Your Product Management Career Journey
With the best product management tools, product managers can ensure efficient processes, easy collaboration, and a data-driven approach to making products that their customers want.
Don’t be afraid to experiment until you find what works for you—you can start with the best product management tools we’ve highlighted on our list..
To help you further if you are considering a career as a product manager, explore Emeritus’ product management courses to give you the skills needed for the job. The course will also teach you how to use the best product management tools for maximum effect.
Write to us at content@emeritus.org
