Quintessential Toolkit for PMs in 2022

Product managers are the backbone of a company or an organization. They are responsible for the successful development of a product, its introduction into the industry, and the product’s sell-out in the market.

It takes a lot to fill in the shoes of a product manager.

With ever-increasing tasks on their to-do lists, product managers require help in every way. Digitalization in the modern world has played a crucial role in checking the lists of PMs. Tools are the new advancements that help product managers in different ways.

A toolkit is a collectible kit that consists of various tools used by product managers during product management.

Let’s get to know more about the toolkit.

What is a Toolkit?

A product management toolkit consists of virtual tools that are used by product managers. These tools act as resources for the PMs. The technical skills and experiences of a PM and the tools help enhance their roles’ effectiveness.

The basic resources of product managers are

• Digital Accessibility for the Modern Workplace
• Setting Objectives
• The well-being of the team
• Micromanaging as well as macro managing
• Performance management

Characteristics of an Effective Toolkit

To ensure successful product delivery and the success of a project, there are some characteristics that every toolkit must possess. They include

• Flexibility: A toolkit should not restrain. Rather it should be flexible and allow room for innovation. A restrictive toolkit hinders the teams from maximum utilization of resources, leading to reduced use of power and performance for product delivery.

• Enhance Productivity: A toolkit should be easy to use for product managers. An effective toolkit should enhance productivity and save time and money in the longer run.

• Modular: A toolkit should be modular such that it should allow the PMs to use only those tools that are necessary for a project rather than using all the tools.

• Usage of Standard Development Tools: Every toolkit should have standard development tools. Using these tools, help a product manager to hire the best candidate for product development as they are up-to-date with the latest methods and have relevant skills in using these tools.

Best Tools for PMs in 2022

Among the millions of tools that are available online, here are the best tools for PM to include in their stack.                  

Slack

Slack is designed by Slack Technologies and is owned by Salesforce. The users can communicate with each other via voice calls, video calls, and text messaging. They can even share media and files privately or in a group which is referred to as “workspaces”. Slack is one of the best tools for PM in their toolkit. The tool is used by the product managers when they interact with the teams to improve productivity by providing a workspace for effective communication and sharing files and reports. Slack helps the teams of a company to work faster and in sync. It also helps product managers to stay updated regularly.

Jira

Jira is a tool that is developed by Atlassian and is well-known for its bug-tracking and project management. Product managers use Jira for a wide range of purposes. They include managing resources, releasing plans, and completing different development tasks. Jira is one of the top development tools of 2022 and is present in the toolkit of a majority of product managers. The tool has been used by PMs for product management backlogs, building roadmaps, and prioritizing important tasks.

Aha!

Aha! is a cloud-based software company that offers SaaS products to companies around the world. The software tool is a must-have in the toolkit of every product manager as it helps them to understand the products they are developing in detail. When the how and why of a product are, it gets easier to create a roadmap for the development process. This makes project management easier.

One of my favorite things about Aha is using pivot tables. One can work on a difficult topic for a few weeks in-depth, surface for air without losing our direction at 40,000 feet, and vice versa. The tracking of many moving parts is made simpler by epics by initiative. Even one pivot table has eliminated the requirement to construct roadmap slides; is now automatically created out of Aha for both internal users and clients.

Canny

Canny is also considered to be one of the best tools for PM. Canny can be considered an effective customer feedback tool as it is a platform where customers can give feedback about your product. Other than this, product managers in an organization use Canny for creating a product roadmap, helping in meeting the target KPIs and prioritization of feature development. Canny also helps in analyzing customer feedback which results in the improvement of the developed product.

ProdPad

ProdPad is a product management software that helps product managers to develop strategies relating to product development. Product managers use ProdPad for the import and export of data, prioritizing significant tasks, and managing workflow.

The complete lifetime of comments and ideas is catered for with ProdPad. It includes an adaptable ideation pipeline that lets you know where an idea is in the process. The particular workflow feature, in my opinion, is what makes ProdPad stand out from the competition. ProdPad includes open feedback portals and customizable roadmaps that you can share with a client via URL.

Conclusion

All in all, these tools help in making the lives of product managers easier. Slack/notion / g-suite / paper notes are the general tools whereas Lou can be used for in-app messaging. Segment / g analytics / fullstory is used for (mvp) analytics whereas Go links and chrome custom search engines are miscellaneous tools.

Summary

The article discusses the various tools present in the toolkit of a product manager during a project. A product management toolkit consists of virtual tools that are used by product managers. The characteristics that every effective toolkit must possess are flexibility, enhancing productivity, modular, and usage of standard development tools. The best tools for PM are Slack, Jira, Canny, Aha, and ProdPad.