Through this blog, I aim to guide you through the process of selecting felicitous product management software, so you can streamline your processes and effectively work on your product. But, before we dive into the process, let us accomplish the importance of having a suited software for your organization; for my product team to work efficiently.
Table of Contents
Why do my product teams need just the perfect tool?
- Efficiency is time-dependent; you want most of your concentration on development and progressive work, so to eliminate the unnecessary coordination and squeeze meeting hours, you need a product development tool.
- Records and data keeping; Glitches or bugs are a must when you are developing a new product, which can easily be fixed if you know exactly where to find the error, record keeping through these tools helps you read all the code.
- Employees must feel at home with the new processes; they are already used to certain practices, that shouldn’t be completely demolished to induct a new process.
The purpose of the technology is to help you reduce time and effort rather than creating more strenuous.
Guidelines to select the right product management software
With my experience of working closely in the development of different products and the understanding I have gained through studying software in multiple industries, I have listed some essentials that can be helpful for you.
- The software must be user-friendly across all electronic devices be it desktop, laptop, or mobile.
- How responsive and adequate is the support team of the software you will buy? It will take you a couple of months to understand the functionalities, and during this time, you will need all the guidance from the training manual plus a live support team.
- Functionalities are the deciding factor list down what you are looking for in the product management software. Pivotal functions that you must look for are
- Task management
- Collaboration Support
- Deadline Management
- Task Assigning
- Reporting
- Another aspect that you must consider is the integrations of different portals you are using, like Emails, communication tools, or even the website. The software must allow friendly integration for the smooth run of the processes.
After ensuring all the discussed prospects are in line with your objective, you are ready to make your pick.
The first step of any purchase is to know what you are looking for, once that is sorted now all you have to do is find the right match.
Let’s look into 10 of the most preferred product software solutions.
Why Asana?
- Asana promises to help expedite your product launch. With Asana you have the liberty to plan an effective product roadmap.
- Effortless sprint planning
- Hurdle-free product launch
- Shift resources on the fly, and eliminate blockers to expedite your process of product management
- Asana is also known for its strong integration across multiple 3rd party tools.
- Task management through the Kandan board also helps organizations be on top of their to-dos.
Why Not Asana?
- Although product managers resonate with Asana, fresh users still need time to get a complete hold of the software. You need experience before you start using it effectively.
- Time tracking can be a concern as Asana does not offer any adequate time management solution.
- Too many options can also be confusing at times; this is also one major issue with Asana as it has a bulk of tools available.
- You can assign one task to only one individual, collaborative working is an issue, but you can still add collaborators who can view or comment.
Pricing
Asana Basic
For individuals or teams just getting started with project management.
0$
Asana Premium
For teams that need to create project plans with confidence. A small team discount may apply.
Starting $10 per user per month
Asana Business
For teams and companies that need to manage work across initiatives.
$24.99 per member, per month
Asana Enterprise
For organizations that need additional security, control, and support. All the power of Business, plus more security, control, and support
Why Jira?
- For your product to be bug-free and error-less, Jira helps you identify all these concerns for seamless development
- Helps you cover the entire product development lifecycle in collaboration with all the stakeholders.
- You can integrate with tested management tools to ensure the quality of your code.
- Available templates and customizable solutions for tasks managements allow you to stay up to date on the status.
Why Not Jira??
- It’s not that easy to start with, the complicated setup can piss you off initially.
- No internal communication solution on Jira, although integration with 3rd parties does resolve this issue.
- Not effective when it comes to project or task management.
- Overwhelmed with the number of products as Jira offers a vast variety of products to choose from.
Pricing
Development
JIRA and JIRA Agile for issue tracking and development.
starts at $20 per month for 10 users
Service Desk
JIRA and JIRA Service Desk for issue tracking and service requests.
$20 per month for 10 users
Asana Business
For teams and companies that need to manage work across initiatives.
$24.99 per member, per month
Why Monday?
- Day-to-day task management, from assigning to evaluation, can be done with utter ease.
- Keeping track of internal communication without searching through emails and looking into call logs and text messages is now possible with Monday.
- Specifically for the real estate industry, you can set a board with the list of active projects and monitor daily activities. You can also prioritize projects using these boards.
Why NotMonday?
- It gets expensive with the per-users pricing policy; at times, you are forced to minimize the team size for this reason.
- Calculating the time and cost of a particular task can be a challenge.
- Salesforce, SharePoint, and other popular third-party applications cannot be integrated with Monday.
Pricing
Free
$8.00 4 Seats Per Month
Basic
Manage all your teams’ work in one place
$0.00 2 Seats
Pro
Streamline and run your teams’ complex workflows
$16.00 3 Seats Per Month
Standard
Collaborate and optimize your team processes
$10.00 3 Seats Per Month
Enterprise
For organizations that need enterprise-grade security, control, and support.
Why Click-Up??
- Planning events and parties like birthday anniversaries or awards are made easy with Click-Up.
- Developing a personal network on Click-Up for contact management is easy as you like.
- Do you love cooking, or are you a chef? Clink-Up helps you collect recipes and maintain your cookbook
- Although it’s for product management, Click-Up is a very effective personal management tool.
Why NotClick-Up??
- Due to excessive customization, at times, Click-Up users get overwhelmed by the amount of effort they need to put in.
- Setting up a calendar is laborious as you have to do so many clicks
- Click-Up and Gmail integration is not that impressive, but it seems like this issue will be resolved, in near future.
Pricing
Free
100MB storage, unlimited tasks & users, two-Factor Authentication, collaborative Docs
$0
Unlimited
Unlimited Storage | Unlimited Integrations | Unlimited Dashboards
$0.00 2 Seats
Business
Google SSO | Unlimited Teams | Custom Exporting | Advanced Public Sharing
$19 per user per month.
Business Plus
Team Sharing | Subtasks in Multiple Lists | Custom Role Creation | Custom Permissions
$19 per user per month.
Enterprise
White Labeling | Advanced Permissions | Enterprise API | Unlimited Custom Roles
Why Wrike?
- Reliable reporting tools that help decision making
- Customizable templates available for teams to save the time of designing boards
- Sharing files and commenting feedback is easy for even non-techy employees.
- Interactive Gantt chart helps the overview the project’s progress and evaluate a feasible end date.
Why NotWrike?
- You can’t take notes or keep a record of small pointers that pop up in your mind while reviewing daily tasks.
- Out of budget for individuals or small teams to benefit out of.
- Delayed notifications one email.
- You don’t have an internal chat option that could have been helpful.
Pricing:
Free
A simple, shared task list for small teams.
$0 Unlimited users
Professional
5 to 200 users. Full project planning & collaboration
$9.8 user/month
Business
5-200 users. Volume discounts available Robust work management with customization & exec reporting
$24.8 user/month
Why Pendo?
- t allows you to analyze users’ behavior towards your product, and know how people interact with your app, website, and digital content.
- You can embed survey forms into your app which allows you to ask the hyper-forced questions at the right time to respond.
- Onboarding is supported with the help of guidance functionality.
Why NotPendo?
- Installation is lengthy and hectic.
- Only good for enterprise companies, not within the budget for startups or small teams
- Not really compatible with flutter, so using it on phone is an issue.
Pricing:
Free
Start understanding and optimizing your customers’ experience with Pendo. It’s free, forever.
0$
Team
Optimize your customer’s experience with the ability to understand and guide your users.
$9.8 user/month
Pro
Increased ability to understand what users want, communicate product priorities, and scale efficiencies.
Enterprise
Leverage the complete Pendo platform across your entire product portfolio with increased support.
Why Coda?
- Supports quick coding and helps designers and developers prepare websites 2X faster than before.
- Through heavy cloud-based file management systems users can easily access or edit files at will.
- Responsive previews can be seen live the moment you add effects on the desktop.
Why NotCoda?
- Speed and performance are compromised with time, so much that it takes 10 seconds for a command to work.
- You can confusingly share your documents publically without realizing it.
- Note really scalable with the time issue.
Pricing:
Free
Unlimited Editors and Doc Makers, unlimited Viewers
$0/month per Doc Maker
Pro
Unlimited Editors and unlimited Viewers
$10/month per Doc Maker
Team
Unlimited Editors and unlimited Viewers
$30/month per Doc Maker
Why NIFY?
- Effective task management to simplify day-to-day working.
- Supporting team collaboration to eliminate all the hindrances to communication.
- Get reliable reports and insights on to base your decisions on that.
Why NotNIFTY?
- Time log maintenance is a hurdle where you can’t edit previously entered logs.
- With new updates coming in you always face a few issues like integration is affected.
- Limited amount of templates and customization options
Pricing:
Free
100 MB Storage | Unlimited Tasks | Unlimited Users | 2 Active Projects
$0
Starter
100 GB Storage Space | 40 Active Projects | Unlimited Guests & Clients | Time Tracking & Reporting
$5.00 Per Month
Pro
250 GB Space | Unlimited Projects | Everything in Starter, plus: | Cross-Project Overviews
$10.00 Per Month
Business
Unlimited Storage | Unlimited Projects | Everything in Pro, plus: | Workloads
$16.00 Per Month
Enterprise
Unlimited Users | Custom SAML | Personalized Onboarding & Training
$25.00 Per Month
Why ProductPlan?
- Effective visibility into the developmental roadmap
- Jira integration helps identify priority
- You can customize boards based on what is more important to be shown continuously.
- Controlled access depending on the needs of the team and position.
Why NotProductPlan?
- The SSO requires extra payment
- Rollback feature not available to rectify errors or mistakes
- Initiation is comparatively hard, you need time to understand the software
Pricing:
Basic
Unlimited Roadmaps | Unlimited Viewers | Basic Integrations (Jira, Trello, Slack, Azure DevOps, Pivotal Tracker, GitHub, and Confluence)
$39.00
Pro
Everything in Basic plus... | Portfolio View of Roadmaps | Jira and ADO Two-Way Sync | MS Teams Integration
$69.00
Team
Everything in Professional plus... | Custom Terms of Service | Team by Team Training (Unlimited) | Onsite Training Options
Why Hive?
- Easy workflow management and task assigning
- Internal communication made stress-free and also sharing updated tasks files
- Easy integration makes brings record keeping and data at one place.
Why NotHive?
- Pricing system is not attractive, you even end up paying for feature you don’t use
- You cannot create dependent tasks
- Reporting is not reliable and precise
Pricing:
Hive Solo
This is a free version of Hive available for teams of 1-2 users.
$0.00
Hive Teams
One simple base price with optional add-ons that apply to all users in your workspace.
$12.00 / 1 Seat
Hive Enterprise
For teams and companies of all sizes that require custom project management features and extra support.
My Expert Opinion
The entire pros and cons shared above are based on the experience of the users. It’s not necessary that a single tool will meet all your requirements, but still you must look for a product management software that can be easily incorporated into your system and its integration allows you to connect all the other apps with it, so that you have one point of connection for all the workflow management.
I prefer making a list of requirements I need before I begin with my hunt, that’s something I will suggest you guys too.
If you need some more help and consultation, you can always connect with me and we can have a chat.
