Product managers are usually the backbone of a creative team. From tracking product development to gaining insight from user analytics, their role encompasses varied responsibilities. To keep the work machine well-oiled and running, every product manager needs some help.
Ever-changing priorities need product managers to be flexible and land on their feet every time. That’s why we’re bringing you a list of tools that our product manager uses on a daily basis to ensure excellent output at maximum productivity.
1. Product review: ruttl
ruttl is a visual feedback tool for teams that work on website projects. Get contextual feedback on illustrations and replace content on live websites while inviting managers, clients and stakeholders to review the work in progress and ask for timely feedback.
This means there are fewer email loops, and no feedback is lost. Product managers can keep track of all comments received and see how they’ve been resolved. ruttl also saves all iterations of the project, so product managers can review and go back and forth as needed.
2. Coordination & communication: Slack
Every team needs a way to communicate with each other. Whether the team works remotely or together in the same office, written communication is the best way to ensure nothing is missed or falls off anyone’s plate. Product managers can see all updates through different channels — whether it’s marketing or development.
Slack offers a quick and easy way to coordinate with team members while keeping a record of all instructions and communication. As a bonus, its integrations with Google Drive and similar apps allow team members to share their work in progress for review easily.
3. ProofHub
ProofHub is a highly effective product management tool that helps teams provide consistent outcomes and increase their success rate. With ProofHub, product managers can organize and assign tasks, manage team responsibilities, select the best perspective for their team, boost productivity, centralize all product conversations, and communicate from anywhere.
4. Project management: Trello / Notion
For teams that have to manage work for more than a few clients and internal projects, a project management tool like Trello or Notion is crucial. Trello allows you to create different boards for each project or project goal. Product managers can then group tasks, allocate them to team members, and move the task cards around as needed.
At Brucira, We also use Notion to maintain a working database of our important links and file locations, keeping it centralized so everyone can access anything they need. Notion also offers Kanban-style boards (like Trello) that product managers can tag people in and quickly move around. It also allows users to document any useful information: notes, graphics, links, within pages and sub-pages, making it a pretty comprehensive tool for most teams.
5. User research: Typeform / Google Forms
Product managers also need to conduct user research to ensure the products and services being rolled out are solving the right pain points. Typeform and Google Forms both allow you to easily and quickly create and send out appealing surveys and questionnaires to your users. Product managers can then track and analyze the customer feedback received, categorizing and turning them into practical and actionable tasks.
6. Task management: Brutask
For the product managers who want a bird’s eye view of what the team is working on, a task management app like Brutask is the solution. Brutask is a simple to-do list app that lets team members add their tasks at the start of the day and allocate time for each task. Product managers can then review the tasks on a stand-up call or simply follow-up via email or Slack for updates. Brutask offers Manager View, which allows the product managers to keep track of what everyone’s working on every day. An app like Brutask improves overall workplace productivity and offers autonomy without compromising on clarity.
7. Collaboration: Dropbox & Google Drive
Teams with high creative output require a useful collaboration tool or two. Dropbox and Google Drive are the two most commonly used storage and collaboration apps, and for good reason. They allow team members to save and capture their work in progress, allowing other members to access it. The right file-sharing tools enable teams to collaborate and share work in real-time, even remotely.
Furthermore, it assists product managers to track and prioritize backlogs, allocate and monitor tasks, accelerate product maturity, elaborate product goals, capture as well as track user feedback.
ProofHub makes it possible to transform a team's concept into a successful product. Product managers will be able to spark new ideas, strategize effectively, assign jobs appropriately, and deliver high-quality products.
At the end of the day, a holistic stack of product management tools offers clarity, easy communication, and a smoother product development process. These tools are by no means the only ones on the market — there are many, many more that we’re yet to try. Product management tools can improve your team’s output and help your product manager keep better track of everything that needs to get done.
If we’ve missed your favourite tool or if you have one you’d like for us to try, please let us know!
If you’re a designer fed up with the current clunky review process, our website feedback tool ruttl — the future of design review is on its way.
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