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1 world class product managementwww.productfocus.com

Top 10Product Management Tools

2016

© Product Focus 2016

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product

Contents What is Product Marketing? All the variations explained p04

The basics Right message, right people, right place, right time p08

Planning The delivery of marketing materials p14

Personas Getting ‘under the skin’ of our customers p16

Inbound marketing Going digital to attract and convert leads p18

Insight: Artist and expert Never underestimate the value of product marketing p22

ProductMarketingGetting products in front of customers and making sure they sell

http://goo.gl/5msLz8




ContentsExecutive summary 5

Introduction 6

How to select a tool 7

Methodology 8

Results 9 Tools for different activities 12 Top 50 tools 15 Top 10 Product Management Tools 16

Top 10 Product Management tools in detail Accompa 17Aha! 18Confluence 19Jama 20Jira 21ProductPlan 22ProdPad 23Rally 24Roadmunk 25Wizeline 26

A summary: top 10 and other tools 27

Glossary of terms 29

About Product Focus 30

To the best of our knowledge the information contained in this report was correct at the date of publication (April 2016). Product Focus Ltd takes no responsibility for decisions made based on the information in this report.

Top 10 Product Management Tools 2016 document version 1.0. All content is © Product Focus 2016.

This report is licenced for the individual who purchased it and it may not be wholly or partly shared without the written permission of Product Focus.

https://www.productfocus.com


Top 10Product Management Tools

2016This Product Focus report identifies the tools used by product managers to help them do their job. It’s based on data from an extensive survey completed in January 2016 by 568 product managers and product marketers from 460 technology-based companies.

Tools are available to help across a wide-range of activities. They include general office applications like Word and Excel but this report focusses on software tools specifically designed to help companies manage their products. We term these ‘Product Management Tools’.

The report identifies and provides an overview of the top 10 Product Management Tools.

Product Focus are European leaders in product management training and consulting for technology-based companies. Our goal is to help individuals and businesses deliver world class product management.

We hope this report will help you understand what’s available in the market and find the right tools for your business.

product

focus


A myriad of tools

All the trademarks and tradenames referenced in the report are the property of their respective companies.



Executive Summary Most product managers use generic tools like Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint to do their job. We see this changing, albeit slowly. There is now a growing number of tools targeted at product managers - we call these ‘Product Management Tools’ in this report.

These tools help make product managers more efficient when doing the administrative parts of their role like managing requirements. Helping to automate and simplify mundane aspects of the job can be a big time-saver. It frees up time to focus on the serious thinking and makes collaboration easy both within the company and with customers.

Most tools can be configured to fit the way a company works. However one benefit of some tools is that they give insight into best-practice approaches. This combination of best practice insight and configuration enables companies to introduce and enforce a better way of working that suits their circumstances.

Their successful introduction is dependent on pre-planning. Prior to implementation it’s important to evaluate how current processes work and how they could be improved to make product management and development better. This step is often missed when tools are introduced by another part of the organisation e.g. by Development, and imposed on product management.

To get the full benefit of tools requires buy-in from all involved. They must become a habitual part of working. This applies not just within the product management team but also with other members of the virtual product team in different parts of the business.

Each vendor uses different language to describe their tools which can make it difficult to make comparisons. This report helps sift through the many choices and identifies the top 10 product management tools used by our survey respondents.

However, just because a tool is in the top 10 doesn’t necessarily make it the best tool for the job. Our experience when talking to product managers is that many tools are introduced by other parts of the company (e.g. Development) and used by product managers because they are already there.

It is a fast moving market with new entrants coming (and going) all the time. So we’ve included a list of all the other tools we’ve come across at the back of the report. And we also include a short checklist on how to help select the tool that is right for you.


IntroductionOur survey showed that there are a wide range of tools available for product managers and product marketers. Some cover many activities whilst others focus on a narrow area. And as the product management and product marketing roles vary from company to company so the activities that need to be supported can be very different.

So which tools do product managers choose?

The results of our Product Focus annual survey identified that Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint remain the tools of choice for many administrative tasks. This may not surprise many!

Generic office applications have their place but now is the time to look at what the next generation of tools can offer. These next-generation tools offer functionality to improve performance in many areas such as requirements gathering, roadmap planning and analytics.

The successful introduction of these tools depends on two fundamentals:

(1) that they fit the way the business wants to work and

(2) that they are regularly and consistently used.

These tools can help in a variety of ways by streamlining and automating common product management activities. For example recording, tracking and prioritising requirements or updating different views of the roadmap when plans change.

Another key benefit is helping alignment and collaboration across different departments. For example, a single location to store, access and share information such as release details.

Finally, many tools can push product managers into examining the importance and benefit of what may be new activities. For example, analysing the success of newly released features or gathering input directly from online customers.

The introduction of these tools is likely to improve communications acoss team boundaries and so help collaborative efforts and bringing structure to those who’s way of working is more ad-hoc.

This report highlights the top 10 product management tools targeted wholly or partly at product managers.

Each is provided with a full page review. In addition, links and a summary are provided for other tools that might also be relevant to your circumstances. Our experience is that many companies use (or at least try out) multiple tools.



Before evaluating Product Management Tools, it is recommended that you start with a review of your current processes. This gives the opportunity to improve and optimise your way of working before buying and deploying a tool. Failing to do so may drive up costs and create extra work as you find you have to adapt the tool to deal with broken or inefficient processes.

The review should include an assessment of how decisions are made and how information is collated and shared within and between teams.

A useful approach is to use swim lane diagrams. A simplified swim lane diagram showing key teams and their interaction is provided to the right.

You can adopt this or use other business analysis approaches to model and improve the flow of information between different business functions.

We recommend a structured approach to assessing and selecting tools and have provided the checklist below to help:-

1) Review existing processes.

2) Prioritise areas for improvement and decide on any changes to be made

3) Assess current solutions and preferences - are existing in-house tools suitable or can they be adapted to support how you want to

work?- do you want a single tool to cover a broad range of activities or tools that focus on

specific problem areas?

4) Use this report to identify potential candidates. Think about:- relevance to what you want to do- price level and structure- support availability- what you want to assess during a trial and who needs to be involved - whether the tool needs to (and can it) integrate to other systems/tools you have- how mature is the tool and how trustworthy is the company- whether you’re happy with a SaaS solution of want to install a solution behind your firewall

to keep data secure and not have to rely on external internet connections

5) Try a free trial version before committing to purchase.

How to select a tool

Customer

Support

Product Management

DevelopmentDevelopmentManagement

Requirementsor Feedback

RoadmapManagement

ProjectManagement

ReleaseManagement

RequirementsManagement

FeedbackManagement

Bug Tracking

Product Managementactivity

Other departmentactivity

Information flowKey


MethodologyThis report is based on a survey that took place in January 2016. Data from 568 product managers and marketers from 460 technology-based product companies was used. 91% of these were from Europe and 24% were Heads of Department, Directors or VP level.

The survey asked the following questions about using tools for different activities.

1. Product Strategy: What do you use to document product strategy, analysis and opportunities?

2. Getting Insight: What do you use when collecting, sharing and testing ideas and insights from customers, the market, competitors and internal teams?

3. Tracking Requirements: What do you use when documenting and tracking requirements?4. Prioritisation: What do you use when prioritising ideas, requirements and features?5. Roadmapping: What do you use when creating roadmaps to present and share release

information?6. Creating Mockups: What do you use when creating mock-ups such as prototypes,

wireframes and screen designs?7. Project Management: What do you use to project manage e.g. internal rollouts,

development, launches, trials and marketing plans?8. Metrics and Analytics: What do you use when measuring the impact of new features and

success?9. Other Activities: What other tools do you use for any other tasks not asked in the previous

questions?10. What specific Product Management Tools have you used?

Many product management roles do not include all of the above activities and the graph below shows the percentage of all respondents who answered each question. The top 10 is based on the overall number of mentions of a tool across all questions. It excludes generic office, design, project management tools etc. The top 10 are tools that are specifically targeted at product managers.

% o

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1) Prod

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2) Gett

ing In

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3) Tra

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Requir

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4) Prio

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5) Roa

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6) Crea

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7) Proj

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8) Metr

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9) Othe

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What activities are tools used for?

Development Methodology vs Product Management Tool Utilisation

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

68%

43%22% 20%

32%57%

78% 80%

Agile e.g. SCRUM Some Agile andsome Waterfall

Waterfall only e.g.Stage-Gate

No Development

Do use product management tools Don’t use product management tools

10) O

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ools



% o

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1) Prod

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2) Gett

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3) Tra

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Requir

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4) Prio

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5) Roa

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6) Crea

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7) Proj

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anag

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8) Metr

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9) Othe

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What activities are tools used for?

Development Methodology vs Product Management Tool Utilisation

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

68%

43%22% 20%

32%57%

78% 80%

Agile e.g. SCRUM Some Agile andsome Waterfall

Waterfall only e.g.Stage-Gate

No Development

Do use product management tools Don’t use product management tools

10) O

nline T

ools

Without doubt there are many Product Management Tools from which to choose. The selection of one or more tools is going to be dependent on your current and future requirements.

One approach is to “cherry pick” tools that are best in class for specific tasks e.g. roadmapping or requirements management. With this approach there is a need to ensure simple integration (ideally automated) between the chosen tools. Another approach is to look for a good all-round tool, which works for most product management administration tasks.

Whilst our Top 10 Product Management tools have not been around for many years, they’ve matured quickly. They are proven in many different companies each with their unique way of working.

This time next year it is anticipated that:-

1. more product managers will be using more specific Product Management Tools

2. there will be more tools to choose from

3. established tools will have more functionality and capability

4. integration between tools will grow

But, you should make you choice based on the suitability of the tools available today.

Independent of the type of products or services you manage, using a dedicated Product Management Tool should improve they way you communicate with others, manage projects, speed up decision making and help you develop better products.

The graph below show the a clear link between the use of Product Management Tools and the development methodology in use. Companies using Agile are much more likely to use these tools.

Results

10 world class product managementwww.productfocus.com JIRA

29.7%

MS Excel 24.9%

MS Word

19.5%

Confluence5.9%

5.0% MS TFS4.7%

Google Docs3.5%

Trello2.8%

SharePoint2.0%

Aha!2.0%

Other15.0%

MS Excel

26.4%MS PowerPoint

22.4%

MS Word

19.4%

Confluence

8.4% Google Docs

6.1% Email4.9%

JIRA4.4%

SharePoint4.0%

Survey Monkey2.3%

Trello1.7%

Other17.3%

MS PowerPoint

30.4%

MS Word27.5%

MS Excel

25.7%Google Docs

4.8%

4.6%

JIRA1.9%

Aha!1.8%

SharePoint1.3%

Trello1.0%

Wiki1.0%

Other7.0%

Confluence

MS PowerPoint

Tools for different activities1) What do you use to document product strategy, analysis and opportunities?

2) What do you use when collecting, sharing and testing ideas and insights from customers, the market, competitors and internal teams?

JIRA

29.7%

MS Excel 24.9%

MS Word

19.5%

Confluence5.9%

5.0% MS TFS4.7%

Google Docs3.5%

Trello2.8%

SharePoint2.0%

Aha!2.0%

Other15.0%

MS Excel

26.4%MS PowerPoint

22.4%

MS Word

19.4%

Confluence

8.4% Google Docs

6.1% Email4.9%

JIRA4.4%

SharePoint4.0%

Survey Monkey2.3%

Trello1.7%

Other17.3%

MS PowerPoint

30.4%

MS Word27.5%

MS Excel

25.7%Google Docs

4.8%

4.6%

JIRA1.9%

Aha!1.8%

SharePoint1.3%

Trello1.0%

Wiki1.0%

Other7.0%

Confluence

MS PowerPoint



4) What do you use when prioritising ideas, requirements and features?

3) What do you use when documenting and tracking requirements?

JIRA

29.7%

MS Excel 24.9%

MS Word

19.5%

Confluence5.9%

5.0% MS TFS4.7%

Google Docs3.5%

Trello2.8%

SharePoint2.0%

Aha!2.0%

Other15.0%

MS Excel

26.4%MS PowerPoint

22.4%

MS Word

19.4%

Confluence

8.4% Google Docs

6.1% Email4.9%

JIRA4.4%

SharePoint4.0%

Survey Monkey2.3%

Trello1.7%

Other17.3%

MS PowerPoint

30.4%

MS Word27.5%

MS Excel

25.7%Google Docs

4.8%

4.6%

JIRA1.9%

Aha!1.8%

SharePoint1.3%

Trello1.0%

Wiki1.0%

Other7.0%

Confluence

MS PowerPoint

MS Excel

31.3%

JIRA 26.5%

MS Word

11.4%

MS PowerPoint

11.0% Trello5.3% MS TFS5.0%

Google Docs3.1%

Aha!2.9%

Confluence2.5%

Target Process1.0%

Other14.5%

MS PowerPoint

50.4%

MS Excel

20.0%

MS Word

12.7% Confluence3.1%

3.0%

JIRA2.8%

Aha!2.6%

MS Visio2.5%

Trello1.9%

Google Drive1.0%

Other10.8%

Balsamiq

24.5%

MS PowerPoint21.1%

MS Visio

15.0%

Axure

8.8%

MS Word

8.5%MS Excel6.8%

Pen/Pencil4.8%

Photoshop4.4%

Sketch3.4%

Paint2.7%

Other22.1%

Google Docs


MS Excel

31.3%

JIRA 26.5%

MS Word

11.4%

MS PowerPoint


Google Docs3.1%

Aha!2.9%

Confluence2.5%

Target Process1.0%

Other14.5%

MS PowerPoint

50.4%

MS Excel

20.0%

MS Word


3.0%

JIRA2.8%

Aha!2.6%

MS Visio2.5%

Trello1.9%

Google Drive1.0%

Other10.8%

Balsamiq

24.5%

MS PowerPoint21.1%

MS Visio

15.0%

Axure

8.8%

MS Word

8.5%MS Excel6.8%

Pen/Pencil4.8%

Photoshop4.4%

Sketch3.4%

Paint2.7%

Other22.1%

Google Docs

5) What do you use when creating roadmaps to present and share release information?

6) What do you use when creating mock-ups such as prototypes, wireframes and screen designs?

MS Excel

31.3%

JIRA 26.5%

MS Word

11.4%

MS PowerPoint


Google Docs3.1%

Aha!2.9%

Confluence2.5%

Target Process1.0%

Other14.5%

MS PowerPoint

50.4%

MS Excel

20.0%

MS Word


3.0%

JIRA2.8%

Aha!2.6%

MS Visio2.5%

Trello1.9%

Google Drive1.0%

Other10.8%

Balsamiq

24.5%

MS PowerPoint21.1%

MS Visio

15.0%

Axure

8.8%

MS Word

8.5%MS Excel6.8%

Pen/Pencil4.8%

Photoshop4.4%

Sketch3.4%

Paint2.7%

Other22.1%

Google Docs



MS Excel

31.9%MS PowerPoint

17.3%

MS Project

16.2%

MS Word

13.8% JIRA10.3% Trello3.0%

Confluence3.0%

Google Docs2.0%

Aha!1.4%

MS TFS1.1%

Other10.5%

MS Excel

46.5%

MS Word

13.7%

MS PowerPoint

12.8%Google Analytics

10.2%

4.0%

Tableau3.1%

Survey Monkey2.7%

General Surveys2.6%

JIRA2.2%

Confluence2.2%

Other12.8%

MS Excel

23.1%MS Word

17.3%

MS PowerPoint

17.3%

JIRA

17.3%Slack

7.7%Trello7.7%

Zendesk3.9%

3Scale1.9%

Freshdesk1.9%

Meetup1.9%

Other17.3%

Sales Force

7) What do you use to project manage e.g. of internal rollouts, development, launches, trials and marketing plans?

8) What do you use when measuring the impact of new features and success?

MS Excel

31.9%MS PowerPoint

17.3%

MS Project

16.2%

MS Word

13.8% JIRA10.3% Trello3.0%

Confluence3.0%

Google Docs2.0%

Aha!1.4%

MS TFS1.1%

Other10.5%

MS Excel

46.5%

MS Word

13.7%

MS PowerPoint


10.2%

4.0%

Tableau3.1%

Survey Monkey2.7%

General Surveys2.6%

JIRA2.2%

Confluence2.2%

Other12.8%

MS Excel

23.1%MS Word

17.3%

MS PowerPoint

17.3%

JIRA

17.3%Slack

7.7%Trello7.7%

Zendesk3.9%

3Scale1.9%

Freshdesk1.9%

Meetup1.9%

Other17.3%

Sales Force


9) What other tools do you use for any other tasks not asked in the previous questions?

MS Excel

31.9%MS PowerPoint

17.3%

MS Project

16.2%

MS Word

13.8% JIRA10.3% Trello3.0%

Confluence3.0%

Google Docs2.0%

Aha!1.4%

MS TFS1.1%

Other10.5%

MS Excel

46.5%

MS Word

13.7%

MS PowerPoint


10.2%

4.0%

Tableau3.1%

Survey Monkey2.7%

General Surveys2.6%

JIRA2.2%

Confluence2.2%

Other12.8%

MS Excel

23.1%MS Word

17.3%

MS PowerPoint

17.3%

JIRA

17.3%Slack

7.7%Trello7.7%

Zendesk3.9%

3Scale1.9%

Freshdesk1.9%

Meetup1.9%

Other17.3%

Sales Force

42.9%

20.6%

12.7%7.9%

4.8%

3.2%

3.1%

1.6%

1.6%

1.6%

Other11.1%

JIRA

Aha!

Prodpad

Trello

Confluence ProductPlan

Wizeline

AccompaRoadmunkJama

10) What specific Product Management Tools have you used?



Top 50 ToolsThe following chart shows the top 50 tools (of any description) mentioned by product managers in their survey responses. These range from generic office applications to tools for project management, visual design, storage, development management, surveys, presentations and personal productivity. From these we’ve picked out the top 10 tools that are wholly or partly targetted specifically at product managers.

In the top 50 the first 6 represent 80% of the mentions by product managers. The rest make up 20% and are listed in order by the number of mentions.

25%

16%

4%

3%

MS Excel

Aha!

Trello

Balsamiq

MS Visio

0.9%

21%

MS PowerPoint

MS Word

JIRA

ConfluenceGoogle Docs

11%

20%

MS TFS

SharePoint

Axure

Prodpad

Email

Wiki

Sales Force

Redmine

Survey Monkey

Paper / pencil

PhotoshopPaintRally

Target ProcessSketch

EvernoteSmart SheetOmnigraffleGoogledrive

SlackAccompa

Google DriveMoqups

General SurveysGoogle SheetsProduct Plan

IllustratorDropbox

PreziMix Panel

Business ObjectsWizeline

RoadmunkMind Manager

TeamworkAsana

WorkflowyCustomer Interviews

Jama

Other


AccompaAha!ConfluenceJamaJiraProdpadProductPlanRoadmunkRallyWizeline

Top 10 toolsactivity support

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Key: Strong support Medium support Supported

Top 10 Product Management ToolsThe 2016 survey identified the top 10 most widely used Product Management Tools. This is based on the overall number of mentions of tools that are specifically targeted at product managers.

The table below also shows these tools in alphabetical order. The star ratings for each activity reflect their breadth of functionality.

Each tool needs to be evaluated against your current circumstances and needs. If you are looking for an all round Product Management Tool then Aha!, Wizeline, Jama and Prodpad are all strong candidates for consideration. However there is also a strong call for using special tools like JIRA, Confluence, Accompa and Rally to manage requirements or ProductPlan and Roadmunk to manage roadmaps. The top 10 Tools are all available in free low capacity versions or on trials lasting between 14 and 30 days.

57%

21%12%

3%2%

Other

1.7%

0.9%

0.8%

0.8%

0.8%



SummaryAccompa is a primarily a requirements management platform for product managers, business analysts, engineering and IT teams. It is purpose built to optimise requirements collecting and management prior to initiating a development project. Accompa helps structure requirements so that they can be tracked and enhanced, speeding up the management process.

DescriptionAccompa’s standard user interface provides tabs for major areas of functionality: Feature Lists, Use Cases, Requirements, Baselines and Autocapture. Other features can be added which provides a comprehensive list of tabbed sections and an extensive set of documentation in a centralised location.

Requirements can be created or imported to the Requirements List. Each requirement can have a wide range of attributes to help facilitate searching and management: Title, Description, Products, Tags, Status, etc. The Description field has an embed fully-functional rich text editor that supports bullets, tables, images and includes an intelligent spell-checker that learns. Up to 12 different types of custom fields can also be added.

Accompa provides Return On Investment (ROI) scoring to help prioritise requirements. This includes as standard a range of scoring factors but also allows custom criteria to be used.

Within Accompa there is a powerful index and search tool that not only searches Accompa metadata and fields, but also any attachments. Popular attachments that are searchable include: Word, Powerpoint, Excel, PDF and Text files.

The tool uses a logical ‘Features to Requirements’ hierarchy based on Feature...User Case...Requirements. Other artefacts can also be attached such as personas, test cases and more. All these relationships and dependencies can be traced. “SmartForms” and “SmartEmails” are used to automate the process of requirements gathering.

As with many similar tools, the Accompa collaboration functionality is real-time and secure. Access to content is provided via granular access privilege control ensuring that the right people have access to the relevant information. Requirements can be converted to MRDs, PRDs and SRS documents where the scope can range from Requirements only to Features, Related Requirements plus Use Cases. All documents and entries have history and this provides a robust change management control.

Price (Mar 2016)

Accompa have three different bundles all starting with 5 user licenses, Standard Edition $199, Corporate Edition $399 and Enterprise Edition $799/user/month. Additional user licenses can be added ranging from $29-$79/user/month. Free trial available to those who meet their trial criteria.

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy ★★ MRDs, PRDs and SRS documents can be generated and created.

Getting Insight ★★ Comprehensive collaboration tools for gathering market information and other data.

Tracking Requirements ★★★ Requirements and associated information can be done manually or by importing/linking automatically.

Prioritisation ★★ Prioritisation of requirements support via custom fields and ROI criteria.

Roadmapping ★ Basic roadmapping tools and reporting.

Creating Mockups No mock-up editor but images can be attached to requirements.

Project Management ★★ Granular definition of attributes and criteria for project management.

Metrics & Analytics ★ Advanced metrics and feedback is via third part applications.

web.accompa.com

Accompa

http://web.accompa.com


SummaryAha! is one of the most widely used Product Management Tools. First released in 2013, it has a mature roadmap tool but offers much more than just roadmap management. The comprehensive toolset helps define product strategy, create business models, track goals, build roadmaps, cultivate ideas, define personas & user stories, create progress reports, position products and monitor competitors. In a nutshell, Aha! supports most aspects of product management administration while offering full control over collaboration and reporting.

DescriptionAha! is an online platform with functionality split into 6 groups: Product, Strategy, Releases, Features, Reports, Notebooks. The Product section includes facilities to describe an overview of the product, associated notes, uploaded files and the ability to define user access to various areas of Aha!. The Strategy section is used to define a high-level product vision, business model, personas and competitors.

The Releases sections shows either a Gantt chart of each release or a more detailed version with an expanded view to show all features per release. The Features section provides different views of features per release or a roadmap presentation. The Reports section provides a list view of all product features with the ability to create pivot tables or timeline reports. Notebooks are used to publish anything which is Aha! specific to users as either a PDF download or even a dynamic web page.

Aha! has a very intuitive interface and logically segments activities and data. Having the product strategy front and centre is a great reminder, helping to keep collaborating teams on track. It has an excellent Ideas section allowing not just internal contributors, but also customers to create or vote for ideas via a dedicated Ideas portal. Contributors are kept informed of what’s happening with their idea, helping to keep them engaged.

Importing data into Aha! is via CSV files or from Jira, Trello and User Voice. A wide range of other tools can be integrated within Aha! - see http://www.Aha!.io/product/features/integrations.

The Aha! Home section provides a helicopter view of all products. This is useful for visualizing the progress of releases across all products. Viewing a product portfolio is great for synchronising roadmaps and feature dependencies.

In conclusion, Aha! is a comprehensive suite of tools that would benefit any product management team. The breath of capability and integration is impressive and the interface is simple and intuitive.

Price (Mar 2016)

Annual subscription, $59-$149/user/month or By Month subscription, $74-$124/user/month. Free trial available.

www.aha.io

Activity support Rating Detail Product Strategy ★★★ Comprehensive set of tools to record product strategy and goals.

Getting Insight ★★★ Personas, Market and Competitive information can be stored. Can use private or public website for ideas submission.

Tracking Requirements ★★ Ideas and requirements can be harvested and associated with features.

Prioritisation ★★★ Uses expandable score cards to determine priorities.

Roadmapping ★★★ Very strong roadmapping capability with multiple views.

Creating Mockups No mockup creation capability, but mockups/files can be stored.

Project Management ★★ Good project management linked to roadmap and goals

Metrics & Analytics ★ Analytics is dependent on integration & external providers.

AhaTop 10 Tools in Detail


http://www.aha.io


SummaryConfluence has been developed to help teams collaborate and organise their project documents. It is made by Atlassian, who also make JIRA and the two tools are fully integrated. The basic premise of using Confluence is to create and consolidate all documentation into a centralised location. Meeting notes, project plans and product requirements can easily be created using an embedded online editor. Feedback is provided via familiar social media functionality.

DescriptionConfluence introduces the idea of Spaces. Spaces are used to help collate ideas, tasks, feedback and contributions from a team. Four different types of Spaces can be created and within each Space there are pre-defined document templates that can be used to create new documents.

All documents and Spaces are accessed via the Confluence Dashboard, Space Directory and Space sidebar. There are also keyboard shortcuts. The Space sidebar is where you’ll find the page tree - a hierarchical list of pages in the Space.

For a Product Management space, the standard templates typically used include: Blog Post, Decision, File Lists, How-to-Article, JIRA Report, Meeting Notes, Product Requirements, Retrospective Analysis, Sprint Plan, Task Report and Trouble Shooting Articles.

New templates can easily be created to accommodate specific document requirements. In many ways, the creation of templates is where the true value of Confluence lies. Apart from simple text layout far more advanced features can be added to a document. In particular, there is a vast array of macros that can be added to a document template. These range from attaching files, images to task lists, JIRA issues, status boxes, table of contents etc.

As you would expect there any many Confluence or JIRA type macros to handle change history, blog posts, space activity, JIRA charts etc. Other external content can be added to templates and documents including activity streams, Agile wallboard gadgets, average age charts, days remaining Sprint gadget, JIRA roadmaps, pie charts and many more. Pre-existing documentation can also be uploaded.

Confluence would be a great tool to use for managing most, if not all product management documentation. It would also be useful for the creation and management of product requirements, knowledge bases and product strategy.

Price (Mar 2016)

SaaS pricing ranges between $10 to $1,000/month (10 to 2,000 users). On premise software ranges from between $10/month for 10 users, $1,200/month for 25 users all the way up to $200,000/month for 40,000+ users. Free trial available.

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy ★★★ Wide selection of template and flexibility to create user defined templates.

Getting Insight ★★ Public/private viewing of documents to cultivate & promote feedback.

Tracking Requirements ★★★ Contains a pre-assembled requirements tracking template which is integrated with JIRA.

Prioritisation ★ Basic prioritisation based on importance field

Roadmapping ★ Basic roadmapping capability using tables and task reporting.

Creating Mockups There is no support, but mockups can be attached to documents.

Project Management ★ Basic project management capability using tables and task reporting.

Metrics & Analytics There is no support for obtaining user metrics.

www.atlassian.com/software/confluence

Confluence

http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence


SummaryJama is used to gather, coordinate and manage ideas, features, stories and epics. It enables structured collaboration, accelerated decision making, tracking, change control, robust reporting and embedded documentation. Customers are from industries with very specific needs for managing requirements such as automotive, aerospace, defence and medical - where there is a strong focus on requirements compliance.

DescriptionThe Jama core functionality is split into four main sections, Stream, Projects, Reviews, and Administration & Integration. It has a sophisticated document and content creation tool that includes support for word processing, advanced diagram creation and UI mockup development.

Streams facilitate engagement with key stakeholders and contributors. They use a mechanism very similar to Twitter to engage interested parties using redirection to individuals and the use of hashtags. Streams has been extended to include Jama groups, projects and individual items. For each item an action can be defined e.g. Decision Needed, Question or Issue.

Projects provide a way to organise and manage all information within Jama. Within each project there is a collection of documents and information that are selected using filters, baselines, releases and reports.

Projects can use a wide variety of Document item types. These include: feature lists, requirements lists, use cases, test cases, defects, change requests, user stories, epics, usage scenarios, strategic themes, portfolio epics and many more. All have predefined layout designs for example, User stories include the ‘As a…I can…So That…’ structure.

As part of creating new features the editor allows the inclusion of text, pictures, documents, special characters and diagrams. Included within the document editor is a comprehensive diagram editor that supports a large object library including basic objects, AWS, flowchart, UML, BPMN, Lean mapping and User Interface mockup primitives.

The reviews section is used to setup and distribute a list of features for review. Reviews can be public or private and reviewers can include contacts that aren’t members of Jama.

The Administration section is used to define organisation detail, users, user groups, access permissions, relationship and workflow. The granular configuration view is ideal for situations where an audit trail is required. The workflow part of Jama is particularly useful when working with more complex review processes.

No public pricing information available (Mar 2016)

Free trial available.

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy ★★ Most elements of product strategy can be documented using document item

types.

Getting Insight ★★ Market intelligence can be collated using item types and distributed reviews.

Tracking Requirements ★★★ All documents and items can be tracked, reviewed and approved. Tracking is part of the extensive and configurable workflow management.

Prioritisation ★★ Review & stream functionality contributors can easily determine priorities.

Roadmapping There are no visual tools for roadmapping.

Creating Mockups ★★ Diagrams and UI mock-ups can be created using the Diagram Editor.

Project Management ★★ Projects, documents, other items can be tracked and map dependencies.

Metrics & Analytics ★ Jama and 3rd party support of metrics recording & charted analytics.

www.jamasoftware.com

Jama


http://www.jamasoftware.com


SummaryJIRA is an Agile-focused tool for managing, planning, prioritising and tracking requirements and releases. It is developed and sold by Atlassian, the company behind Confluence with which JIRA can be integrated. The tool is typically introduced into a company by the Development function. It is widely used, highly flexible, customisable and interfaces to a large selection of other tools.

DescriptionJira supports two types of project, software-based projects and business-based projects. The main differences being the range of issues and workflows that are supported.

Workflows range from simple tasks to complex processes. Each workflow has 4 components: status, transitions, assignees, and resolutions. JIRA is highly customisable to fit almost any project management scheme and method. Workflows can also be imported from the Atlassian marketplace and range from Bugzilla to Pivotal workflows.

Regardless of project type, each project has a number of issues. Issues can be in the form of bugs, new features, tasks, improvements, subtasks, epics and stories. Due to the nature and flexibility of JIRA, there are various tools to import entire projects. Tools that are supported include: MS Excel, Bitbucket, GitHub, Asana, Trello, MS TFS, Rally, VersionOne, Pivotal Trackers, FogBugz, Trac, RedMine and Basecamp.

Altassian also offers a rich market place to enable third party vendors to sell add-ons to JIRA. These can range from Roadmap visualization tools like Aha! to other visualization tools that help simplify daily issue reviews and updates.

Being an Agile-based system - planning, project estimating, backlog grooming and reporting are fundamental to JIRA. Also included is support for burndown charts, sprint reporting and tracking of all progress.

Finally, JIRA can be used within the cloud, on a server or within a dedicated datacenter. The level of configuration management and scalability is significant when many contributors need access to tracking the progress of projects. However it is important to configure and use JIRA correctly - if not, some product managers have described the experience as ‘drowning in JIRA’.

Price (Mar 2016)

SaaS pricing ranges from $10/user/month. This increases from $75 to $1,500 dependent on user tiers i.e. 15, 25, 50, 100, 500, 2,000. Free trial available.

www.atlassian.com/software/jira

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy Project strategy needs to be defined outside of JIRA.

Getting Insight ★ Market and customer intelligence is again defined outside of JIRA, but user stories and epics are supported.

Tracking Requirements ★★★ Requirements, bugs and other issues are easily imported and tracked.

Prioritisation ★★ Simple prioritisation is provided by Lowest, Low, Medium, High and Highest. There are no other fields for prioritisation.

Roadmapping ★ JIRA doesn’t have any specific roadmapping tools but is able to report on progress and projected progress.

Creating Mockups No support for creating mock-ups.

Project Management ★★★ JIRA supports a wide variety of project management methodologies via workflows. Workflows can be used to create customized methodologies.

Metrics & Analytics ★★ Project progress and analytics is extensive.

Jira

http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira


ProdPad

SummaryProdpad has been developed by product managers for product managers and has been around since 2010. It has been designed to capture ideas and turn them into features for a roadmap. The easy to use and logical layout consists of Idea Management, Product Roadmapping, Prioritisation, Portfolio Management, User Personas & Feedback, Team Collaboration, Integrations, Export and Reporting.

DescriptionProdpad consists of seven sections that are always present within a side panel. Core features are accessed via these sections which are Dashboard, Products, Roadmaps, Ideas, Customer Feedback, User Personas and Mockups & Designs.

The Dashboard provides a helicopter view of the product backlog and even identifies ideas that haven’t been updated recently or those that need more detail.

The Product section summaries all managed products and any product portfolios. This functionality allows you to see a canvas of product details including, name, vision, KPIs, Description, Top Ideas, Mockups and Personas.

Interestingly, the Roadmap functionality doesn’t specify time scale and simply splits each roadmap into Cards (current, near-term and future). Ideas are then associated with a Card to form sections of the roadmap. The Card concept is based on the idea of managing roadmap via themes. The roadmap is designed as a guide and intended to align and inform, but is not a strict project plan.

The tool is quite versatile, for example, there are four ways to create an idea. Create an idea within Prodpad itself, import ideas from a CSV Excel file, send ideas via email to Prodpad or use the Chrome extension to add ideas directly to Prodpad while surfing the Internet.

Individual personas can be defined and further detail can be added, including behaviours, goals, constraints. Profiling individuals in this way makes it easy to tailor features according to persona requirements. Each idea has a field to attribute one or more relevant personas.

Mockups are created in another application and exported as .PNG, .JPG, .GIF and .SVG. These files can also be accessed and added to Mockups via Dropbox and GoogleDrive.

Finally, Prodpad integrates with a lot of different online systems including JIRA, Trello, Pivotal Tracker, Github, UserVoice, Rally, Team Foundation Server, Webhook and Slack. Prodpad also has a Chrome Extension and supports Google one-click login (SSO).

Price (Mar 2016)

Prodpad has both monthly and annual subscription plans based on the number of products (1 to 10). Pricing ranges from $45-$359/month for the monthly subscription to $39-$299/month on an annual subscription. Free trial available.

www.prodpad.com

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy ★★ Extensive and integrated functionality to document strategy.

Getting Insight ★★ Public Roadmaps can be used get feedback from customers.

Tracking Requirements ★★★ Full ideas management and organization of customer feedback.

Prioritisation ★★ Flexible rating of feedback and ideas using different scales.

Roadmapping ★★ Themed roadmaps are based on current, near-term and future.

Creating Mockups ★ Support the re-use of pre-existing mockups via Dropbox/GoogleDrive.

Project Management No project management or Gantt capability.

Metrics & Analytics ★ Advanced metrics and feedback is via third part applications.


http://www.prodpad.com


ProductPlan

SummaryProductPlan has been designed to create and manage unlimited roadmaps. It is a tool that helps product managers define a roadmap prior to any formal project planning and includes the ability to prioritise based on predefined benefits and cost criteria.

DescriptionProductPlan is split into three sections, Roadmap, Planning Board and a Parking Lot.

Features and ideas imported into ProductPlan are stored in the Parking Lot along with new ones created by the product manager. Items can then be moved into the Planning Board for review and prioritisation.

The Planning Board is where prioritise are set. Users are presented with the option to rate the benefits and costs of each roadmap item. Pre-defined benefits include - Increase Revenue, Customer Value, Strategic value and others can be defined. Pre-defined costs include Implementation Effort, Operational Costs and Risk. All criteria weightings can be adjusted to reflect your priorities. The resultant score is then used to rank ideas against each other. The Planning Board can be exported as an XLS file.

From the Planning Board, items are then dragged to the Roadmap. This is a single operation and every item has to be dragged and dropped into the Roadmap area. This may seem tedious, but in practice it’s not too onerous as ProductPlan has been designed to be used at the very early stages of Roadmap planning and feature prioritisation.

For each item, various fields can be populated including: a more detailed description, strategic importance, percentage complete, effort, legend definition, tags, further notes and URL links. Luckily, all of these fields can be imported from a CSV file and this is the recommended workflow. Any member of the team can add comments to each item.

ProductPlan is good tool for creating visual roadmaps and helping prioritise features. It is a tool that would be used in combination with other tools via XLS files. Currently, there is only support for integration with JIRA, but both the Roadmap table and Planning Board can be exported as an XLS spreadsheet.

Price (Mar 2016)

SaaS annual subscription works out at $34/user/month or monthly subscription, $39/user/month. Free trial available.

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy ★ Minimal product strategy tools, but Roadmaps form part of product strategy.

Getting Insight There are no tools for getting market or customer insight.

Tracking Requirements ★★ 3rd party tools are required to do requirements gathering but their data can be imported into ProductPlan.

Prioritisation ★★★ Benefits & Cost criteria provide a strong approach to defining weighted prioritisation.

Roadmapping ★★★ Wide support for product/portfolio roadmapping with the inclusion of versioning.

Creating Mockups There is no support for creating mockups.

Project Management ★ Project management is minimal as there is no way to define dependencies, accurate start times and duration.

Metrics & Analytics There is no support for any metrics or analytics.

www.productplan.com

http://www.productplan.com


SummaryRally was recently bought by enterprise software provider CA Technologies and is now called CA Agile Central. It is primarily an Agile development management tool with product management functionality to manage requirements and produce roadmaps. It offers both SaaS and on premise versions.

DescriptionThere are 3 editions of Rally: Community, Enterprise and Unlimited. Community is a free limited service.

The Rally Enterprise edition supports shared product backlogs, multi-team project management, reporting and advanced analytics. It also connects to popular software tools such as JIRA and gives access to the Rally App Catalogue of pre-built components. This along with a web services API and developer tool-kit means the application can be customised to a company’s needs.

It includes Kanban boards to manage the flow of work for almost any process. However all software development work can be tracked no matter what agile method is used. It also includes a customisable dashboard with tailored views and notifications that allows everyone to collaborate.

Unlimited adds several modules: Portfolio Manager, Insights Analytics and Flowdock Enterprise (a team collaboration application for desktop, mobile and web).

Although Rally is offered as SaaS it can also be installed on your premises. Its multi-tenant architecture provides high levels of reliability and performance and gives secure access to data from anywhere in the world. Rally offers Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to back up their availability claims.

Rally is focused on working within an agile environment with evolving customer requirements. Requirements can be imported, created, prioritised and tracked as part of backlogs with full traceability. High-level features can be decomposed into functional and non-functional requirements.

The product and portfolio reporting allows the creation of multi-level roadmaps and the ability to assign investment categories and value scores.

The analytics and metrics allow reporting on team performance with burndown and similar reports. In addition, company performance can be benchmarked against 160,000 other Agile projects.

Price (Mar 2016)

Community is offered as SaaS and is free for 10 users and 5 projects. Enterprise and Unlimited are both priced per user and allow an unlimited number of users but no pricing is shown on the website. Free trials are available for all editions.

www.rallydev.com

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy Not supported.

Getting Insight There are no tools for getting market or customer insight.

Tracking Requirements ★★★ Comprehensive tools for managing requirements.

Prioritisation ★★ Supports the prioritisation of requirements.

Roadmapping ★★ Multi-level integrated roadmaps.

Creating Mockups Not supported.

Project Management ★★★ Strong project management functionality.

Metrics & Analytics ★★ Investment categories and value scores on products.

Trello


http://www.trello.com


SummaryRoadmunk has been specifically designed to create roadmaps of all types. Roadmaps based on Timelines and Swimlanes are supported as standard but these can be customised to suit requirements.

DescriptionRoadmunk is a fully featured roadmap creation tool that can import and re-use feature lists from either CSV files or directly from JIRA. During the import process, imported records are easily mapped to existing or new fields within Roadmunk.

Views of the roadmap can be duplicated and an unlimited number of different views can be configured. This is useful for defining different types of Swimlanes e.g. development type vs time or strategic importance vs time.

Within the Swimlane view, the X axis is split between time dependent (first few months) and time independent (Soon and Future). The last column called Bucket, contains all the features that were imported into the Table view. These features can then be moved and placed into the corresponding Swimlane columns by dragging and dropping.

Having assembled or added features within the main Swimlane view, further time based refinements can be made in the Timeline view. The Timeline view is a simple Gantt chart that can be customized to your requirements. Features or tasks can be changed by dragging either the start or the end of the feature/task that also changes the duration. More precise start and end dates can also be defined by double clicking on the feature/task. Again the X axis defines time and the Y axis defines development theme for example, Backend, Frontend or Setup.

Features within the Timeline view can also be colour coded in accordance with predefined field values or manually. Views can be exported at any point to either PNG, HTML or published to a permanent URL. The URL can also be password protected.

Roadmunk would be used in addition to other Product Management Tools and is ideal for creating clear and effective roadmaps. It is simple to integrate existing feature lists and is very quick to create and manage either List, Swimlane or Timeline views.

Price (Mar 2016)

Roadmunk has three different bundles priced per user/month - Starter $19, Business $49 and Professional $99. Additional review seats can be added for $5/user/month. Free trial available.

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy ★ Limited, but feature list management and roadmap creation is excellent.

Getting Insight There are no features for gaining market information.

Tracking Requirements ★ Features are not necessarily tracked, but are used to create roadmaps only.

Prioritisation ★★ Features can ordered and filtered in either Table, Swimlane and Timeline views.

Roadmapping ★★★ Very intuitive and simple roadmapping tool, with the ability to share & ex-port.

Creating Mockups There is no support for creating mockups.

Project Management ★★ Features/tasks are editable in terms of start/end dates or duration.

Metrics & Analytics There is no support for measuring metrics or analytics.

www.roadmunk.com

Roadmunk

http://www.roadmunk.com


SummaryWizeline is a relatively new online Product Management Tool (released 2013) that provides a well organised selection of functionality for collating features/ideas, tracking ideas, measuring interest, gaining feature feedback via surveys and presenting detailed product or portfolio roadmaps. It includes an intuitive approach to feature prioritisation that simplifies the task. Wizeline is integrated within a useful set of 3rd party tools including, JIRA, Salesforce, Google Analytics and Zendesk.

DescriptionWizeline supports user roles including: Admins, Editors, Evaluators and Executives. Having role based access provides control over who sees and who can edit what. It also facilitates a good interaction with customers via the Evaluators role.

Wizeline is able to capture requests either directly or via a dedicated email alias. These requests can be validated and extended with additional information to become features. These features then become candidates for a product and can be prioritised for a release within the roadmap.

Within the Roadmap view, all roadmap releases can be viewed and edited. Features that are specific to a release can be expanded to reveal those that are going to be included (above the “wizeline”) and those that are not. Prioritisation is determined by dragging and dropping features above or below the “wizeline”. Also a cost limit is defined within the “wizeline” which is effectively a release budget. This budget is then used to determine if the whole release is in surplus or deficit.

The Basic plan includes an option for an Evaluator user. The Evaluator user can submit product requests, participate in surveys and get notified with the status of a feature changes. This is ideal for obtaining direct customer feedback.

Within the Pro plan there is an option to include a Salesforce user. This special type of user can submit feature requests and ideas without leaving the Salesforce product. The other great aspect about this close integration within Salesforce is that you can quantify the business impact of a feature request. The integration also provides a closed loop and can help notify Salesforce users of implemented features.

Wizeline offers exceptional tools for capturing requirements, prioritising, managing feature candidates and creating highly visual roadmaps. The concept of the “wizeline” is well implemented and simple to understand.

Price (Mar 2016)

Wizeline has a free Roadmapping tool for one product and then Basic $49/user/month and Pro $99/user/ month subscriptions. Options include $39/user/month for Salesforce and $7-$11/user/month for Evaluator Users. Free trial available.

Activity support Rating DetailProduct Strategy ★ External documentation can be added to products, requests and features.

Getting Insight ★★★ Robust set of tools to gain insight from the market, including surveys, voting and public or private feedback.

Tracking Requirements ★★★ Well thought out requirement tracking easily transpose to features and roadmaps.

Prioritisation ★★★ Various fields and integrations can be used to help with prioritisation. The Wizeline functionality is effective for final release prioritisation.

Roadmapping ★★★ Very clean roadmap tools that provide high-level to detailed views.

Creating Mockups There is no support for creating mockups, but files/images can be added.

Project Management ★ Simple project management specific to individual features or releases.

Metrics & Analytics ★ Integrated with Google Analytics and used to determine feature priorities.

www.wizeline.comWizeline


http://www.wizeline.com


A summary of the tools mentioned in response to the survey is provided below:-

10000ft was developed by a creative consultancy in Seattle called Artefact and claims to allow managers to spend more time doing work and less time managing the work. www.10000ft.com

Accompa is a good all-round product management tool and has strong capabilities for creating and tracking requirements. It is primarily aimed at larger organisations. web.accompa.com

Aha! is a widely used product management tool and it is also the tool with the highest ranking for supported features. The only area where Aha doesn’t have support is the creation of mock-ups. www.aha.io

Axure helps create prototypes of websites & apps without coding. www.axure.com

Balsamiq Mockups is a rapid wireframing tool that reproduces the experience of sketching on a whiteboard, but using a computer. www.balsamiq.com

Casual is an online project management tool that helps teams plan and execute projects as simple workflows online. www.casual.pm

Confluence is very strong in the area of documentation management and tracking of requirements. Confluence is often used in tandem with Jira. www.atlassian.com/software/confluence

Creately is an online tool that makes it easy to create, share, and collaborate with data-rich diagrams. www.creately.com

Emaze is next generation online presentation software with professionally designed free templates. www.emaze.com

FeatureMap is a product built by Salience, a growing consulting & tech company located in France. It is designed to simplify projects and encourage collaborative work. www.featuremap.co

Invision improves the design process in a more collaborative and efficient way. It claims to be the world’s leading prototyping, collaboration & workflow platform. www.invisionapp.com

Jama is another good all around product management tool with strong requirements and compliance management capabilities. www.jamasoftware.com

JIRA focuses predominately on tracking requirements and project management tools. JIRA is strong in requirements prioritisation, metrics and analytics. It is often introduced by the Development organisation. www.atlassian.com/software/jira

Jive communication and collaboration solutions help individuals and organisations work better together www.jivesoftware.com

Mixpanel gives you the ability to easily measure what people are doing in your app on iOS, Android, and web. www.mixpanel.com

Mockflow is an online wireframe tool for software and websites. www.mockflow.com

Moqups is an HTML5 App for creating high fidelity, mockups and wireframes. www.moqups.com

OneDesk is social software that connects employees, partners and customers to the product or service development process. www.onedesk.com

A summaryof all tools

http://www.10000ft.com

http://web.accompa.com

http://www.aha.io

http://www.axure.com

http://www.balsamiq.com

http://www.casual.pm



http://www.creately.com

http://www.emaze.com

http://www.featuremap.co

http://www.invisionapp.com

http://www.jamasoftware.com

http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

http://www.jivesoftware.com

http://www.mixpanel.com

http://www.mockflow.com

http://www.moqups.com

http://www.moqups.com

http://www.onedesk.com


ProductBoard helps Product Strategists, Managers, Marketers and Designers to design and build products. www.productboard.com

Prezi is presentation software that uses motion, zoom and spatial relationships to bring ideas to life. www.prezi.com

Prodpad is a good all round tool, but without significant project management functionality. It excels at requirements tracking and improves the efficiency of transposing ideas into features. www.prodpad.com

ProductPlan is ideal for requirement/feature prioritisation and roadmapping. ProductPlan would supplement other tools that specialise in product strategy, getting market insight, creating mockups and project management. www.productplan.com

Proto.io helps you create fully-interactive high-fidelity prototypes that look and work exactly like your app should. No coding required. www.proto.io

Rally provides Agile software solutions that help streamline Agile business processes. Recently purchased by CA Technologies. www.rallydev.com

Receptive is especially for SaaS product teams. It allows businesses to grow faster by giving insights into feature demand from customers and internal teams. www.receptive.io

Redmine is a flexible project management web application which includes a Gantt chart, calendar, wiki, forums, multiple roles, and email notification. www.redmine.org

Roadmunk is one of the best dedicated tools for creating and sharing roadmaps. Roadmunk would be ideal to complement other product management tools. www.roadmunk.com

Slack brings all your communication together in one place with real-time messaging, archiving and search solution for modern teams. www.slack.com

Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. It can connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click. www.tableau.com

Target Process is used to create Kanban boards, visual development flows, flow chart reports, teams board, custom flow setup. www.targetprocess.com

Trello can be used for a variety of list-based product management activities. Predominately, getting market insight, requirements tracking and roadmapping. Trello would usually be used with other specific product management tools. www.trello.com

Wizeline is very capable for gaining and managing market insight, creating and tracking requirements, feature prioritisation and roadmapping. It is very fast at prioritising features using a variety of attributes and its proprietary “Wizeline”. www.wizeline.com

Zendesk makes it easy to support customers and enable self-support. www.zendesk.com

Are you a tool supplier?If you supply a tool aimed at product managers and have comments on this report or would like to be included in the 2017 report then please email us at: [email protected]


http://www.productboard.com

http://www.prezi.com

http://www.prodpad.com

http://www.productplan.com

http://www.proto.io

http://www.rallydev.com

http://www.receptive.io

http://www.redmine.org

http://www.roadmunk.com

http://www.slack.com

http://www.tableau.com

http://www.targetprocess.com

http://www.trello.com

http://www.wizeline.com

http://www.zendesk.com


Glossary of terms

Acronym Meaning

API Application Programming Interface: a set of routines, protocols and tools for interconnecting applications

AWS Amazon Web Services: Cloud computing services

BPMN Business Process Modeling Notation: A method of illustrating business processes in the form of a diagram similar to a flowchart

CSV Comma Separated Values: A highly portable file format that stores tabular data (numbers and text) in plain text

GIF Graphics Interchange Format: A bitmap image format that’s widely supported, doesn’t lose image detail and supports transparency

HTML Hyper Text Markup Language: A markup language for describing web based documents so they are displayed as the developer intended

JPG Joint Photographic (Experts) Group: Sometimes written as JPEG. A widely used standard images that does not support transparency and loses image detail

MRD Market Requirements Document: A document used to identify customers and their requirements for a product. Also often talks about the competition

MS Microsoft

PDF Portable Document Format: An open standard for electronic document exchange that’s widely supported

PNG Portable Network Graphics: A bitmap graphics file format that doesn’t lose image detail, supports transparency and is sometimes more efficient than GIF.

PRD Product Requirements Document: A document containing prioritised requirements for a product that states what’s needed (not how it should be delivered)

SaaS Software As A Service: Software applications delivered from the cloud rather than being hosted on a customers’ computers

SRS Software Requirements Specification: A description of a software system to be developed that details functional and non-functional requirements

SSO Single Sign-On: A single login provides secure access to multiple different software systems

SVG Scalable Vector Graphics: An XML-format for storing images that allows them to be displayed at any size without jagged edges. Supports transparency

UML Unified Modelling Language: A set of icons and formatting rules widely used to graphically describe processes and software applications

URL Uniform Resource Locator: a reference used to identify resources on the internet e.g. a website address www.productfocus.com

XLS Excel file format: The file extension used for Microsoft Excel files (more recent formats for Excel files include XLSM, XLSX)

XML eXtensible Markup Language: a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding information that is machine and human-readable


product

focus

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Attend a 3-day public course for a thorough grounding in the role or a 1-day workshop to advance your career.

Show you care about your professional development by becoming a Product Focus Certified Product Manager.

On-site private training Improve team performance with tailored on-site private training.

Get everyone using consistent best-practice approaches and speaking the same language.

We come to you, so you save travel costs and make the most of your time together.

Reviews and assessments Ensure the team is set-up for success with a review of product management in your business.

Answer questions such as are we setup right, how should we measure performance, have we got the right processes and where can we improve?

Leadership forum A one-day exclusive workshop for senior executives to meet, discuss and learn how to lead a high-performance product management function.

The forum provides an oasis away from daily distractions to focus on the strategic issues of leading and improving product management.
