5+ Useful Product Management Tools
Last updated on November 14th, 2023
Product management is a complex and costly process which entails planning the intricate details tied to a product and how it may be valuable for an organization. The stages of product management involve everything from drawing board tasks to product launch. To weave together these complex puzzle pieces, you can use various product management tools.
What is Product Management & What does a Product Manager do?
Product managers evolved from brand managers. A product manager typically overlooks products that are being produced for customers or internal use. The product manager is responsible for everything from determining the basic features of a product, how the product might be produced to roadmaps, strategies, goals and the like. In other words, product management entails bridging the gap between different departments like engineering, sales, marketing and support to ensure that a product is produced and launched successfully. Moreover, product management entails the planning, production, forecasting and marketing of a product across all stages of its life-cycle.
Best Product Management Tools
If you are a product manager who wants to ensure that all aspects of your product are well-organized, with perfect harmony between various departments, you might want to look into our list of the 5 best product management tools for better product management.
1. Aha.io
A while back we covered Aha.io, which is a comprehensive product management platform which enables cross-departmental cohesion under a single interface. This web service enables product managers to plan each and every aspect of a product, starting from the ‘why’ and ‘when’ to the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of product management. Product managers can collaborate online, include customer feedback and plan for not just new products but bug fixes, product updates, research and improvement tasks related to a product. Aha.io is the kind of product management platform which can be effectively used for a product, regardless of the stage it is in its product life-cycle.
Aha might not be the cheapest product management platform, however, it is laden with features which can help cover virtually every product management aspect you can think of. Aha offers a heavily discounted Startup package is available for certain organizations who meet a set criteria, however, you can also sign up for a free trial to test the service.
2. InnovateNow
InnovateNow is an end-to-end product management platform with a free starter packages for micro businesses.
One of the major emphasis you will see in terms of options and functionality in InnovateNow is related to collaboration. This can include cross-departmental collaboration, as well as brainstorming and collaboration between other relevant stakeholders. InnovateNow is ideal for incorporating agile engineering principles in your product management strategy. InnovateNow isn’t just great for product management but also project management, although the line between the two can be sometimes rather thin.
Apart from collaboration, InnovateNow offers everything from making your own roadmaps and backlogs, to product dashboards, release management tools and even the option for making your own product portfolios.
InnovateNow is a great platform for product managers to effectively manage their products across different stages of the life-cycle, as well as to collaborate with various departments to innovate new products and technologies.
3. OneDesk
OneDesk is not just a product management tool, as it comes with integrated services for product and project management, customer feedback and customer services, release management, issue tracking, etc. OneDesk can be suitable for organizations looking for an integrated solution which can enable them to not only effectively manage products but also to enrol various other aspects tied to the product within a single platform (e.g. customer support).
OneDesk has a Starter package of $10 per month, which supports up to five users, however, you can also sign up for a 14-day free trial to test the service,
4. Wizeline
Wizeline is the type of product management tool which emphasizes heavily upon the planning aspect of products. You can create product and portfolio roadmaps to share online, conduct product surveys to incorporate team feedback in your product plans, with features for idea and backlog management, feature prioritisation and data-informed product strategy options to help identify and make use of the best possible product strategy.
While Wizeline has a Basic package of $49 (billed annually) per user per month, the basic cost of each user is around $4, which makes it somewhere around a mid-ranged product management platform for small businesses. The annual billing however, might make it a bit expensive for many small organizations to use Wizeline.
5. SensorSix
Unlike other tools mentioned in this list, SensorSix has a rather simplified interface, which isn’t a bad thing, especially for small organizations and product management newbies. The various options provided by this cloud based platform allow end users to collect ideas, track issues, collaborate, analyze and plan ahead.
You can build lists based on the most valuable and affordable features and get visualizations for the most efficient models for your products, based on your budget. Such lists can be created by collaborating with stakeholders and analyzing their input.
SensorSix surprisingly offers a free package with unlimited users, which might be what you need to get your small business off its feet.
The product management tools mentioned above can be suitably used for small, medium size and even large organizations for effective product management. What tool your organization might opt for will largely depend upon a number of factors such as the budget, ease of use and feasibility of incorporating a cloud based platform within your corporate environment.
Since we published this blog post, other product management tools have emerged, like Monday, Atlassian and ProductPlan. If you know other good product management tool that deserves to be in this list, feel free to share your thoughts with us and tell us what makes your picked tool more effective than the ones listed above.
