15 tools for a working arsenal of a product manager

    Every manager dreams that the product management process runs smoothly and flawlessly: from concept to release. But this is only possible in theory or in an ideal world. Experience, knowledge or managerial acumen may not be enough. Then, universal and specialized tools and services come to the rescue, which facilitate PM tasks, increase process efficiency and make the product competitive. What tools are necessary for the product manager to feel confident in the current market conditions?

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    Not so much time has passed since then, when product managers did not have ample opportunity to use intelligent platforms. In fact, they had at their disposal only spreadsheets, PowerPoint, or the most primitive software for managing projects and products. Today, everyone is chasing innovations, although for some, for example, it is still more convenient to build Gantt charts for a product on plain paper or a blackboard.

    Currently, each product manager can choose among a variety of free and paid services and tools. Modern software for product management helps in various areas:

    • research work
    • project management
    • product roadmap management
    • design and UI
    • Ux
    • product analytics
    • developing landings
    • in email marketing
    • preparing the video
    • external and internal communication, etc.

    This post is devoted to the optimal set of tools in the working arsenal of the product manager. This is not an ideal set, but a list of possible services and platforms, which can be easily supplemented or revised depending on the needs of the product, the target audience, market factors or other conditions.

    15 strategic tools for a product manager


    Jira


    Let's start with the classics. Often, product teams need multifunctional services for complex, including technical solutions. In this case, JIRA is a classic management service. Recently, however, many teams have abandoned this tool precisely because of its complexity and technicality. Many marketers, designers or product managers will agree with this.

    JIRA is a popular platform for developers, managers and teams, helping to manage projects and products, setting and moving tasks, and communication in a team.
    Product launch can be a major challenge for any team. JIRA does an excellent job of automating workflows, optimizing the most time-consuming tasks, and helping to focus on the value of the product.

    Using JIRA, product managers can timely identify issues that matter most to their customers, view details and descriptions of the problems they encounter, comment or send emails directly when they need more detailed information.

    The service includes various functions that allow you to define a product vision and tasks related to building a roadmap, manage ideas in the backlog , determine priorities and involve the team in writing a spec.

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    Confluence


    Confluence is also a very popular software product designed to help teams effectively collaborate and share information.

    Confluence allows you to create pages and blogs that you can comment and edit to all team members who have access. Here you can also attach files and display them on the page for more convenience.

    Many people need to develop, view, edit, comment and publish content as part of collaboration. Confluence was designed to integrate with JIRA, and they have many points of contact.

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    Hygger


    Product management, first of all, means making decisions about what you do with the product, and only then their implementation.

    Hygger.io is a quality alternative to JIRA for product technical and non-technical teams. This is a universal management platform for fast-growing companies.

    The service helps to manage backlog , create and fumble comfortable roadmaps, correctly apply feature prioritization . With the help of Hygger, managers can easily cope with a constant flow of ideas, organizing and prioritizing them, as well as tracking their further development.

    This is an intelligent software development solution using Kanban / Scrum boards and product management tasks, marketing, sales, HR and other departments.
    The service helps save time and money without spending them on developing the wrong ideas for the wrong customers.

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    Sketch


    Sketch is designed primarily for interface designers. Nevertheless, knowing how closely product managers work with designers, we can safely recommend this tool and PM.

    Many have long since left Photoshop opted for this service. In Sketch you will find some features that are not in Photoshop. The application does not weigh much and offers a less “cumbersome” menu. The service contains built-in grids that allow you to work with design elements more smoothly, and with the available templates, the process of creating a design becomes fun and easy.

    Perhaps Sketch does not replace Photoshop completely, but is great for creating websites and interfaces for product needs.

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    Typeform


    Product managers are always interested in what people think about the product and its specific features. Literate PM uses this information to make the right decisions.

    Typeform is an online tool that creates flexible, custom forms for different situations. With it, you can prepare surveys, tests, business forms, quizzes, contests, product reviews, landing pages, application forms, registration forms, expectations lists and much more.

    This platform helps to create all of these forms without having to write lines of code.
    Typeform is actively used by product managers, market researchers, customer success teams, recruiters, online marketers, sales managers and other professionals.

    All functions of this service are aimed at attracting the audience and getting more feedback.

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    Inspectlet


    Inspectlet helps product managers record videos of their clients / users when they use the site. With it, you can view all their actions.

    Inspectlet helps you discover where visitors get confused and what attracts their attention the most. All these facts can help to understand user thinking and increase conversion.

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    Slack


    When product managers need to start a new task, hire a new employee, contact the team, review the sales contract, finalize the budget, conduct an A / B test, plan the next office opening and much more, Slack looks like an excellent solution and covers all these needs.

    Slack is a collaboration tool that unites a company. It creates a healthy ecosystem for full-fledged work with the product, unites people and information in one place, helps to communicate effectively, stay in touch and speed up processes.
    Slack workspace is a common space in which team members can easily communicate and interact.

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    Zoom


    Zoom for video calling is one of the most popular tools for remote meetings and interviews.

    The service helps product managers if they need to organize a video conference, streamline team collaboration, conduct group communication, share documents and other assets, use audio, create simple online meetings, and so on. Zoom is designed and optimized for reliable operation of the whole team.

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    Intercom


    Any team leader cares about the best ways to attract and retain customers.

    Intercom positions itself as a modern service for sales, marketing, support and quick communication with customers. The tool shows who exactly uses your product or site, and makes it easy to communicate with them personally.

    Using Intercom, you can see what your customers are doing (monitor, filter and segment each client), convert leads, use bots, enhance boarding and attract new users, turn subscribers into active and valuable clients, provide self-service support and much more.

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    Zendesk


    Zendesk platform helps support services, simplifies the interaction between customers and companies. Zendesk is suitable for any industry and sector that provides any customer service, and is also an ideal solution for large and small organizations.

    The service may be interesting to the product manager, because it offers the following options:

    • Ticket Management
    • Online support
    • Analytical reports
    • Platform integration and more

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    Amplitude


    The tool focuses on helping companies identify the most valuable in user behavior patterns.

    Amplitude offers a set of free options for different companies: here you will find excellent analytics for modern products, understand user behavior and quickly be able to improve business results.

    In Amplitude, you can get powerful behavioral analytics, evaluation initiatives, and more.

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    Segment


    Segment is an infrastructure for customer data. It collects, saves and sends user data to hundreds of tools with just one click. The service takes care of the confusing process of installing analytics.

    This tool will save time spent by engineers on installing and maintaining analytics tools. It will also be useful to marketers and product managers in test campaigns. It is used everywhere: from advertising to marketing automation.

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    Looker


    Looker is a business application for finding knowledge among data. Looker is used for analytics and a complete overview of your customers.

    The service helps companies use data to make decisions and act in the right direction. You can create visualizations with a single code. ML Looker code helps you create and optimize your queries.

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    Wootric


    Wootric helps to measure and increase NPS. The service offers flexible solutions to improve the loyalty and satisfaction of your customers.

    Wootlic uses proven metric reviews to collect customer feedback through various channels. Using Wootric, you get information about customers, product, customer success and marketing leaders, improving customer service, which will help to stimulate and increase brand loyalty.

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    Appcues


    This is a service software that helps companies implement personalized customer onboarding.

    With it, product managers can create grocery tours, walkthroughs, and messages in the app to greet and attract their customers. You can set up a cloud application in minutes using a convenient editor.

    Appcues is ideal for companies of any size and helps customers become more loyal, solving their immediate pains.

    Main features of the service:

    • Unlimited streams
    • Audience targeting and personalization
    • Thread analytics
    • Advanced behavioral targeting
    • A / B testing
    • Customization

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    It seems I have not forgotten anything. Of course, this is not an ideal list, but using such a working arsenal to its full potential, even a novice product manager will be able to quickly provide a new level of work and get successful results soon.

    What do you think about this set of tools and about each individual service? Should I add something or immediately exclude from this list? Maybe you recently tried a good alternative?

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