The 8 best product management tools

“A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.” ~ Deep Nishar, ex-VP of Product and User Experience at LinkedIn

Nishar’s quote perfectly sums up the diverse challenges of managing product development. Product managers must be able to think strategically, plan out tasks, and coordinate the execution of product initiatives.

But let’s face it: Juggling user research, product planning, prototyping, and customer feedback can be overwhelming. That’s why having the right product management tools in your arsenal is essential.

Product management tools are designed to help you streamline your workflows, plan product roadmaps, collaborate with stakeholders, and track progress toward product releases. We’ve rounded up the eight best product management tools and how they can benefit your agency.

1. Teamwork.com

Teamwork.com is the only all-in-one platform for client work. Built by ex-agency owners, it offers complete operations control, from project planning and resource management to time tracking and invoicing, and powerful project management under one roof – helping client service organizations drive efficiency, improve profits, and scale in confidence. You can easily set up projects and assign tasks, keep track of your team's progress, and share updates with clients within the same platform.        

Over 20,000 companies (including 6,000 agencies) worldwide use Teamwork.com’s suite of tools for various use cases, including:

• Project planning: Visualize your project timelines, manage risks and resources, and create stronger alignment with Teamwork.com’s project planning software.

• Product development: Plan, track, and manage new product development from initial conception through design to delivery and launch.

• Client management: Keep clients informed, engaged, and excited with the ability to track progress, manage feedback, and discuss ideas in a central place for better collaboration.

• Resource management: Manage your team’s daily tasks, easily assign and reassign tasks, and forecast future resources for successful projects.

• Project collaboration: Streamline communication and real-time collaboration with teammates and clients with shared task lists, boards, and files.

• Task management: Create, assign, and track tasks to ensure they are completed on time and within budget.

• Budgeting and profitability: Track financial performance against the client’s budget, analyze profitability, and generate detailed reports with real-time insights.          

Teamwork.com also offers a host of integrations with popular third-party tools such as Jira, Slack, and HubSpot to further streamline your processes. Its powerful project analytics features allow you to track progress, measure performance, and make data-driven decisions.

Best for: Scalability

Scalability is important when it comes to product management. As your team and project scope grow, you need a tool that can keep pace with your goals, quickly adapt to changing market demands, and scale with your agency. 

Teamwork.com is designed with scalability in mind, offering enterprise-level features and integrations in a streamlined user interface that can accommodate large teams, project pipelines, and complex initiatives. You can manage multiple projects, prioritize tasks, and keep track of your team’s progress all in one place.

Customize your workflow

Customized workflows help streamline processes, reduce project risk, and increase productivity. Teamwork.com lets you customize your workflow within the platform, set custom rules for task completion, and automate processes. 

The platform’s pre-built custom project templates let you quickly create projects with predefined tasks and deadlines, saving you time so you can focus on strategic initiatives.

Easily manage team resources

Resource management can be tricky, especially when managing multiple projects and teams. Poor resource management can lead to missed deadlines, budget overruns, and team burnout. Teamwork.com’s resource management feature gives you a bird’s eye view of your team’s workload and capacity. 

You can drill down into individual project tasks and resources, track progress in real time, and adjust tasks as needed. The Workload Planner gives you a complete overview of your team’s workload at a glance, which helps you easily reassign tasks and avoid bottlenecks. The Resource Scheduler also enables you to forecast and plan resources for upcoming projects, track availability, and refine future estimates.

Intuitive mobile app

Teamwork.com’s intuitive mobile app makes it easy to manage projects and tasks on the go. You can access project timelines, task lists, and chat with colleagues from anywhere, at any time. The app lets you stay in touch with your project team, quickly respond to questions and feedback, and keep projects on track. 

Price

Teamwork.com offers a 30-day free trial, after which users can choose from four pricing plans, each tailored for different user types and needs. They are available in monthly and yearly plans: 

• Free Forever: $0 with a maximum of five users

• Deliver: $9.99/user/month with a three-user minimum

• Grow: $19.99/user/month with a five-user minimum

• Scale: Custom pricing

2. monday.com

monday.com is a cloud-based, team-focused product management and collaboration tool designed to help teams plan, organize, and track projects. It allows you to streamline your workflow by centralizing all your processes, tools, and communication into one central hub. 

Best for: Collaboration and visual project management

monday.com’s agile platform makes collaborating with your team and managing complex projects easy. Its intuitive task management, project and resource tracking, and Kanban boards give you visibility into the progress of your projects. You’ll have insights into who is working on what, what has been done, and what needs to be done. 

Key features

• Project management

• Workflow visualization

• Team collaboration

• Goals and strategy

Price

monday.com offers five pricing plans with varying levels of features and capacity. There is also a 14-day free trial to familiarize you with the tool.

• Free: $0 with a maximum of two members

• Basic: $8/user/month

• Standard: $10/user/month

• Pro: $16/user/month

• Enterprise: Custom pricing

3. Google Sheets

Quite a surprise to see this simple tool on a list like this, right? But if you love working with raw data sets and crunching numbers, Google Sheets is actually an excellent product management tool. Its powerful spreadsheet feature lets you quickly organize project data into charts, graphs, and other visualizations for easy analysis. 

Best for: Data analysis and visualization

Seasoned product managers know that data is at the core of product decisions. With Google Sheets, you can download raw datasets, quickly organize and analyze them in a spreadsheet format, and then create visualizations to gain further insights. You can use Sheets for budgeting, forecasting, tracking milestones, and identifying trends in customer feedback.

Key features

• Data analysis and visualization

• Sharing and collaboration

• Automation

• Sharing and collaboration

Price

Google Sheets is free for everyone. However, you can upgrade to Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) if you want more features and storage space:

• Free: $0

• Business Starter: $6/user/month

• Business Standard: $12/user/month

• Business Plus: $18/user/month

• Enterprise: Custom pricing

4. Notion

Notion is an all-in-one workspace that combines task management, project collaboration, and knowledge sharing into one tool. Its note-taking capabilities, idea organization, and built-in templates make capturing ideas, organizing projects, and storing essential information easy. 

Best for: Note-taking and idea organization

Meetings are a great way to brainstorm ideas and discuss project progress, but it can take a lot of work to keep track of everything said. With Notion, you can easily capture meeting notes, organize them into topical sections, and add tasks to team members. It’s like a digital whiteboard for team collaboration. 

Key features

• Task prioritization and scheduler

• File sharing and communication

• Portfolio management

• Project planning/scheduling

Price

Notion offers a free plan with unlimited blocks and an unlimited number of workspaces. You can upgrade to one of their premium plans if you need more features, like advanced security and controls and unlimited members.

• Free: $0

• Plus: $8/user/month

• Business: $15/user/month

• Enterprise: Custom pricing

5. Craft.io

Craft.io’s end-to-end product management functionality helps development teams manage the entire product lifecycle from ideation to launch. This product management software’s visual product roadmap is ideal for product strategy, feature prioritization, and user feedback. Product teams can quickly set product objectives and goals, plan sprints, and track tasks. 

Best for: Product strategy and feature management

You can easily map out a product roadmap and timeline, prioritize features based on customer feedback, and track progress against goals. The platform’s pre-built templates for prioritization frameworks, sprint planning, and resource management eliminates the need for manual setup, saving you valuable time in the development process.

Key features

• Product roadmapping tool

• Data visualization

• Resource management and project tracking

• Capacity planning

Price

Craft.io offers a 14-day free trial with all features included. If you decide to continue using the platform, they have three pricing plans: 

• Essential: $39/user/month 

• Pro: $89/user/month

• Enterprise: Custom pricing

6. airfocus

Being the only modular product management software tailored to agile and lean teams, airfocus helps product managers prioritize their backlog and deliver better products faster. You can quickly rank and prioritize features, evaluate their impact on your goals, and track progress against milestones. Startups, SMEs, and enterprises leverage the platform’s product analytics and portfolio management tools to inform their decisions and drive success.

Best for: Backlog prioritization and roadmap planning

Backlogs can hamper productivity, but airfocus makes creating, prioritizing, and managing tasks easy. Their Kanban-style project boards allow you to quickly drag and drop tasks into different priority levels. This makes it easy to see what’s in progress, up next, and waiting for review. You can also set deadlines, assign tasks, and track progress all in one place. 

Key features

• Modularity

• Project scoring

• Roadmap design

• Task alignment

Price

airfocus offers a 14-day free trial with three pricing plans: 

• Advanced: $69/user/month

• Pro: Custom pricing 

• Enterprise: Custom pricing

7. Confluence

Confluence is a collaboration platform product managers use for team messaging, knowledge sharing, and documenting progress. Its intuitive layout and interactive design make it easy to create professional-looking pages, set up team workspaces, and store all your documents in one place. Plus, you can integrate it with other tools like Jira to create workflows, synchronize projects, and track progress.

Best for: Team messaging

When a project is underway, you need an easy and immediate way to communicate with your team. Confluence allows you to create team spaces, post announcements, and provide feedback all in one place. You can also create custom pages and invite team members to collaborate in real time. All comments, changes, and conversations are stored in the document so you can easily refer back to them. 

Key features

• Content management

• Knowledge management

• Project collaboration

• Software integrations

Price

Confluence offers four pricing plans: 

• Free: $0 with a maximum of 10 users

• Standard: $5.75/user/month

• Premium: $11/user/month

• Enterprise: Custom pricing

8. Jira 

Jira is a comprehensive project management software from the Atlassian family of software development products. Being a SaaS product, Jira is best used for Agile project management, issue tracking, software development, and customer service applications. The platform's customizable dashboards make it easy to create reports, track project progress, and gain team performance visibility.

Best for: Agile project management

Agile project management requires flexibility, iteration, and collaboration. With  Jira, you can plan sprints, automate workflows, and track progress against goals. You can also integrate Jira with third-party tools like Trello, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, and Zoom to create a cohesive workflow.

Key features

• Reporting and analytics

• Issue tracking

• Customizable workflows

• Permission and access management

Price

Jira offers a 30-day free trial with four pricing plans:

• Free: $0 up to 10 users

• Standard: $7.75/user/month

• Premium: $15.25/user/month

• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Product management made simple with Teamwork.com

Product management software streamlines processes, eliminates the need for manual setup, and allows product managers to gain visibility into team performance. Onboarding a new product management software sets your team up for success and makes it easy to track progress, prioritize features, and stay on top of customer feedback. 

Teamwork.com's suite of product management tools will help you reduce time to market, maximize ROI, and build better products. 

Sign up for Teamwork.com today and start your 30-day trial to experience the power of product management made simple.