What are the key tools and software for product managers in 2020? Update your gear with this tailor-made guide and shine through your product Management tools!

Humble beginnings legends in tech have become legendary. A few geniuses, a garage and an ambitious vision: all that’s needed to kick-start a digital revolution.

Would you think this is the way most people do it?

Face it, not all of us are destined to change tech’s face. Or perhaps we are; but the majority of us work hard, one day at a time. And you will appreciate every possible help. A great team, better management and a fresh product make things easier. But you can’t choose them for real. Most of the time, you’ll enter current projects with their difficulties and issues.

However, using the best software and tools for product management are things you can choose from. Find out which tools and software for product management can help you achieve PM excellence in 2020.

Considerations of before selecting for product management tools

Let’s just be transparent first of all. Essential to the budget. Product managers range from remote workers doing support work for various small businesses; to PM bosses in huge tech firms with branches all over the world. Clearly the budgeting will be different in both situations. You also need to be mindful of traditions: you may be at a big business, but perhaps management is used to using “freemium” solutions instead of charging for full services.

Now, as we’re talking costs; make sure you have top-notch protocols on defence. How much data do you want to share with third parties? A security risk is something that you simply won’t be able to handle when things escalate. Another important economic issue is whether the tasks you want to conduct with the product will be performed in your offices or in a third-party setting. In reality, who is your audience: outsiders; colleagues? What kind of team is it that will use these tools?

Such issues matter, as software for product management also has different levels of “users.” Those levels may determine access to different areas: Managers may only be concerned with some. Until choosing one form of product management method or another, keep Hierarchies in mind.

Finally: It’s about integrity. Have a debate with your squad. What is their level of competency? Do they understand interfaces which are “user-unfriendly”? Or would they prefer a slickly crafted programme? Talk to them, get opinions and make sure the team can use whatever you choose.

Once these issues have been resolved, go through the list and select the product management tool and program that best suits your needs.

Best Product Management Tools Available For All Needs

Roadmapping

This is an important exercise in Product Management. While PMs are known to be adaptable, mapping the route illuminates the kind of stakeholder negotiating skills and data-led planning that make brand management so successful.

According to the PMs experience we know, both Roadmunk and Restyaboard ( open-source alternative to Trello) are leaning on “making things easy” AHA is also useful and based on sound theoretical insight into the workings of product managers. Also, ProductPlan is good for those who prefer it to be lighter: it is web-based.

• Roadmunk
• Restyaboard ( productive plugins)
• AHA
• ProductPlan

Prioritizing

A Product Manager will have both a positive and a negative view. That is, they will know when to delete something that isn’t working. This is a very valuable skill: if you’re working alone, you’re saving time and money; if you’re working in a company like Google, you’re saving a lot of time and money.

Suggested tools include Trello, Restyaboard (helps the team choose between lines of action!), Airfocus, Kanbanize, Craft, Hygger, GridRank and Productific.

• Trello
• Restyaboard (Winner & Our Choice)
• Airfocus
• Kanbanize
• Craft
• Hygger
• GridRank
• Productific

Task Management

That backlog on the rise, right? If you want to keep it down you need a good tool which shows you exactly what you need to do to get back on track, both visually and in terms of data.

Any of the product Management Tools suggested above for task administration work. Keep in mind, though, that certain tools align with specific methodologies. For example, if you aren’t dealing with small, Agile teams; they might not be helpful to your team. Restyaboard represents a perfect example. You may need to train the teams so they can work at full speed!

• Restyaboard (Winner & Our Choice)
• JIRA
• Kanboard 

Sprints

This methodology is used across many disciplines and tools belonging to other fields may be used by Product Managers. Tools like Restyaboard and Binfire are perfect enough for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Restyaboard offers a lot of features for larger operations, and Planbox integrates spaces for various teams to operate on the cloud. In short, it’s all about the goals. Would you like to invest in a richer, more dynamic framework for product management? And will you use that freemium software to support your Sprint along with more conventional text, data and presentation tools?

• Restyaboard (Winner & Our Choice)
• Binfire
• Agilean
• Planbox

Data Management

A Product Manager without data is nothing. Your insight could even be based on decades of experience, but you are going nowhere without reliable analytics. On the surface, like a standard spreadsheet, Product Management tools like Airtable work. In addition, it can extend to become a fully-fledged database.

Google Analytics is a free and basic tool for tracking your metrics online, but if you want to go into more detail we recommend Mixpanel, where you can track user interactions and even run A / B testing. Salesforce also offers the adept user potent CRM tools.

All in all, if you put any effort into Product Management data analytics, a decent Excel or Google Sheet can be of great help.

• Airtable
• Salesforce
• Mixpanel
• Excel
• Google Sheet
• Google Analytics

User Knowledge

You need to hear the noise out there in this day and age.

First, you need tools to get customer feedback, understand and react. Zendesk is one of the most common out there; Freshdesk (with brand customization) and Userengage (adding CRM) are alternatives. Sadly, there are no good free options: customer management is still very much a premium service.

You will then need software to collect information about your goods. SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, Survey Anyplace and Typeform are useful for prompt customer requests. UXCam is an interesting view of how consumers use their products.

Restyaboard is a business-rich, open-source application designed to track and visualize the project’s progress. Using a simple and familiar task-based card format, users can combine Trello, Asana, Github, Kantree.io, Pipefy, Taiga, Taskwarrior, and Wekan boards into a single glass table.

Collect user reviews directly from within your app with Instabug, without affecting the app experience of your users. Send tailored surveys to different groups of users, and gain clear insights.

MailChimp and Customer.io finally provide powerful tools to get in contact with your customers via email. MadMimi works if your ambitions are more modest; if you want to cover all corners Intercom is just fine.

Listening to your users is fundamental. Otherwise, you are developing your product in the dark!

• Zendesk
• Instabug
• Freshdesk
• Restyaboard
• Userengage
• SurveyMonkey
• Google Forms
• Survey Anyplace
• Typeform
• UXCam
• MailChimp
• Customer.io
• MadMimi
• Intercom

Product Management Software and Tools for 2020

This list is not exhaustive. Yet its category division should make you think about your needs. What are your weaknesses? Think of them as the positions you can move from and boost the operations of your product management. You can do wonders for efficiency, connectivity, and performance by adding a new tool to your arsenal.

Switching and trying between different tools does not cause any harm. Never believe it’s too hard to change: we’re in the transformation market, after all! Obviously, if you need a better approach to all of this, you might need to look into Consumer Thinking. And freshen up your methodologies.

Also, Read Top 10 Kanban Tools in 2019 (Trello Alternative)