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Top 10Product Management Tools

2018

© Product Focus 2018


ContentsExecutive summary 5

Selecting a tool 6

Methodology 7

Results 8 Tools for different activities 9 Top 50 tools 13 Top 10 Product Management Tools 14

About Product Focus 15

To the best of our knowledge the information contained in this report was correct at the date of publication (March 2018). Product Focus Ltd takes no responsibility for decisions made based on the information in this report.

Top 10 Product Management Tools 2018. Document version 1. All content is © Product Focus 2018

https://www.productfocus.com


Top 10Product Management Tools

2018This Product Focus report identifies the tools used by product managers and product marketers to help them do their job. It’s based on data from an extensive survey completed in January 2018 by 680 people. They were mainly from the UK (44%) and other European countries (46%).

Tools are available to help across a wide-range of activities. They include general office applications like Word and Excel but this report focuses on software tools specifically designed to help companies manage their products. We term these ‘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 Our survey showed that there are a myriad of tools used by product managers and product marketers. Over 330 were mentioned. Some cover many activities whilst others have a narrow focus. 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 use?

Generic office tools like the Microsoft Office and Google Docs suites are still, by far, the most used. However, there are a growing number of tools targeted at specific product management activities. We call these ‘Product Management Tools’ and reveal the top 10 currently in use.

Generic office applications have their place but Product Management Tools offer several benefits:

- Streamlining and automating common product management activities e.g. recording, tracking and prioritising requirements

- Helping communication, alignment and collaboration across different departments e.g. a single location to store, access and share product information

- Pushing product managers into examining the importance and benefit of what may be new activities e.g. analysing the success of newly released features

- Helping product managers use best practice e.g. in how they create roadmaps

How do you choose which tool to use?

As most tools are available on a trial basis we recommend that you try them before committing. We also believe that:-

- To get the real benefit of many tools requires the full buy-in of all involved. The tool must become a habitual part of working for product management and their virtual team

- Successful introduction is dependent on pre-planning. We provide a short checklist in the Selecting a tool section

- It’s easy to become confused when reading the different vendor websites. All seem to have all the answers. This report helps sift through the many choices and identifies the top 10 product management tools currently used by our survey respondents

Conclusion

Our experience is that many tools are introduced by other parts of the business (e.g. Jira by Development) and used by product managers because they are already there. That’s fine, however we believe that product management should also review the tools they use to see if there are opportunities to save time, improve work quality and boost performance.

This year’s survey revealed more people using tools to help them with their product management responsibilities. This reflects the trend we see in our training for adoption of best-practice and increased standardisation in the way things are getting done.

It’s a fast-moving market with new vendors entering the market all the time and existing vendors constantly evolving their offerings. You need to choose the right tool(s) for your business.


Selecting a toolOur experience is that many companies use (or at least try out) multiple tools.

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) 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 or 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 buy



MethodologyThis report is based on a survey that took place in January 2018. Data from 680 product managers and marketers from more than 400 technology-based product companies was used. 90% of respondents were from Europe and 19% 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

successes?

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, to focus on the tools that are specifically targeted at product managers and their activities.

% o

fre

spo

nden

ts

1) Prod

uct S

trateg

y

2) Gett

ing In

sight

3) Tra

cking

Requir

emen

ts

4) Prio

ritisat

ion

5) Roa

dmapping

6) Crea

ting M

ocku

ps

7) Proj

ect M

anag

emen

t

8) Metr

ics & Ana

lytics

What activities are tools used for?

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


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 is the third year in which we have produced this report and we’ve seen several changes over the past 12 months:

1. There is increased use of tools to help do the job

2. Whilst the Microsoft Office suite continues to dominate, their use is in decline

3. Aside from Atlassian’s Jira and Confluence products, the market is highly fragmented -more than 330 different tools were mentioned in the survey!

Before we show our analysis of the answers to questions about which tools are used for different product management and product marketing activities, it’s interesting to see the tools that people would actually recommend to their peers.

The graph below is based on answers to the question:

Is there a tool you would definitely recommend to product managers?

Results

MS Excel

MS Project

Slack

Confluence

7.2%

Jira

7.2%

5.8%

Google DocsOther

Trello

11.6%

20.2%

Salesforce

14.6%14.5%

13.1%

10.1%8.7%

7.2%

MS Teams

Google Analytics



MS PowerPoint

MS Word

MS Excel

JIRA

4.6% Aha!

3.8%

Trello1.5%

Internal businesscase template1.3%

Evernote0.8%

Other

Confluence

25.5%

24%

22.1%7.2%

12%

9.2% Google Docs

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?

MS PowerPoint

MS Word

MS Excel

Email7.1%

Trello5.1%

Aha!3%

MS OneNote2.8%

Other

Confluence

19.5%15.1%

14.4%

11.6%

18.1%

14.2%

Jira

7.1%

Google Docs


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

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

Google Docs

MS Excel

Aha!

Trello

4%

Confluence

3.3%

MS SharePoint

3.2%

MS Team FoundationServer

2.4%

MS PowerPoint1.9%

Other

MS Word

31.7%

19%

18.4%4.3%

14.8%

11.8%

Jira

Trello

MS Excel

Aha!

MS PowerPoint

6%

Confluence

4.8%

MS Team FoundationServer

3.9%

Google Docs

3.4%

ProdPad1.2%

Other

MS WordJira

29.4%

27.7%

10.6%6.3%

19.4%

6.6%

Jira



MS Word

MS Excel Confluence

Trello

4.9%

Google Docs

4.6%

MS Visio

3.8%

Jira

3.2%

Roadmunk1.0%

Other

Aha!

43.4%

19.6%

6.8% 6.8%

17.5%

5.9%

MS PowerPoint

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?

Adobe toolsMS Visio

Balsamiq

MS Paint

6.4%

Sketch

4.6%

MS Excel

4.6%

Axure

4.3%

Google Docs2.3%

Other

InVision

22.4%

19.8%

17%

6.6%

22.2%

12%

MS PowerPoint


Google Docs

MS Project

MS Excel

MS Word

5%

Confluence

4.8%

Aha!

4.7%

Trello

4.1%

Smartsheet1.7%

Other

MS PowerPoint

28.5%

18.2%

15.3%7%

20.3%

10.7%Jira

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 successes?

Adobe tools

MS Excel

Hotjar

3.9%Salesforce

3.5%

Surveys

3% Mixpanel

2.2%

CRM2.2%

Other

MS Word

46.1%

20.4%

7.8%

4.8%

14.8%

6.1%Google Analytics

Tableau



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.

In the top 50, the first 6 tools, shown in the pie chart, represent over 3/4 of the mentions by product managers. The rest are listed in order by the number of mentions.

25%

15.1%

4.5%

MS Excel

MS Word

MS Project

Balsamiq

InVision

0.9%

17.7%

MS PowerPoint

Jira

Confluence

Aha!

8.8%

23.2%

Adobe tools

Trello

Email

ProdPad

MS TFS

Salesforce

MS SharePoint

Target Process

Axure

OneNote

RedmineLucid ChartSmartSheetRoadmunk

AsanaEvernote

Pen and paperSlackGithub

MindmappingTrac

MixPanelFog Buhz

JamaSurvey Monkey

CAAccompa

MarvelMS Visio

CRMGliffy

KanbanProduct PlanFocal Point

DoorsOmniture

In-house toolsKeynoteDropbox

Other

5.7%Google Docs


Top 10 Product Management ToolsThe 2018 survey identified the top 10 most widely used Product Management Tools. This is based on the overall number of mentions of tools that are wholly or partly targeted at product managers or product management activities.

Each tool needs to be evaluated against your current circumstances and needs. If you are looking for a tool built primarily for product managers then Aha! and ProdPad are strong candidates. Others, such as Jira with Confluence, Team Foundation Server, Target Process, Jama and CA are intended to manage a broad range of activities associated with bringing products to market. Finally there are products focussed on particular aspects of product management such as Roadmunk for roadmaps and Accompa for requirements management.

47.8%

27.8% 14.1%2.6%

2.5%

Other

1.7%

1%

0.6%

0.5%

0.5%

5.2%

Development Methodology vs Product Management Tool Utilisation

79%58%

29%13%

21%42%

71%87%

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

Tool adoptionThe graph below shows the use of tools in businesses using different development approaches. It shows a clear link between the use of Agile and the use of tools. Perhaps this reflects the fact that good alignment and communication across teams are fundamental to making Agile work.



product

focus

About Product FocusProduct Focus helps businesses and individuals deliver world class product management.

We teach the skills and tools to excel in product management and product marketing.

Our focus is technology-based products.

We work with some of the industries’ leading companies and the feedback we get is invariably excellent. Our experience, journal and industry survey make us leaders in our field.

Public training courses Build the skills, insights and experience to excel.

Attend a 3-day public course for a thorough grounding in the role, network with peers and learn best practice.

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.

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