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19 best product management tools you must include today in your stack

Being a product manager is like being a multifunctional circus performer. You juggle, ride a horse, train a Bengal tiger, climb a circus roof, etc. At the same time, you have to stay positive, funny, and smart (preferably).
As a product manager, you need to handle lots of information, points of view, and decisions. You also have to continuously switch between various types of software to perform the job appropriately. The efficiency of any product manager greatly depends on whether they have the right tools at hand.
I can tell from my own experience that you need at least 6 tools to perform your work. At the very least, your tool-stack includes the applications for user survey and analytics, knowledge management, project management, collaboration, design and visualization.
Below, I will list the most useful tools for product managers I personally use to do my work. Or should I say “used”? Since I came up with an idea on how to combine knowledge sharing and note taking tasks into one tool, thus making my working processes much easier.
1. Collaboration and knowledge management
I can tell from my own experience that you need at least 6 tools to perform your work. At the very least, your tool-stack includes the applications for user survey and analytics, knowledge management, project management, collaboration, design and visualization.
Below, I will list the most useful tools for product managers I personally use to do my work. Or should I say “used”? Since I came up with an idea on how to combine knowledge sharing and note taking tasks into one tool, thus making my working processes much easier.

Google Docs

It has already become the basics almost everyone uses in their personal and work lives. Creating and further sharing a document is so simple that even my mum knows how to do it. Google Docs online should definitely be your go-to if you work with conservative clients and stakeholders, especially if they are not well-versed in using some new software with complex features. Moreover, Google Docs is a bit unhandy as a mobile note-taking app. I tried to make it work several times but came to the conclusion that it’s better to turn to more responsive note-taking software.

Google Sheets

There’s hardly any other online spreadsheet software as functional as Google Sheets, which makes it almost indispensable for now. I’ve chosen Google Sheets for data aggregation and manipulation since it’s quite easy to use. Though, if there were some cloud-based alternatives to Google Sheets, I would love to use them. Airtable is a bit complex for just creating spreadsheets.

Confluence

This knowledge base tool is the mammoth covering various tasks including document creation and sharing, collaboration, minutes writing, note taking, and many more. The creators of MS Office must have got very sad when Confluence appeared. Confluence is a knowledge management solution that has already gained steady ground in the market. It’s perfect for creating a corporate knowledge base, wikis and mind mapping knowledge management. However, I find its design a little outdated and its functionality too overloaded

Notion

Probably the best note-taking app so far. Here you can do a lot of things, e.g. keep and manage your documentation, take minutes, manage your tasks, or use it as a database. Notion would be almost perfect if there were more task management possibilities and its kanban board was easier to use. Moreover, the Notion price is not as friendly now as it used to be. The database idea is amazing but it's almost impossible to understand how to use it due to its complexity. That’s why I use Notion only for taking notes.

Miro

Honestly, I just love it. Miro is amazing whiteboard online software with almost all the needed collaboration and visualization features. It’s easy to build mind maps, roadmaps, tasks, and kanban boards. As for me, the only critical flaw Miro has is the lack of a document editor.
If you’d like to try something new, I would suggest using Dokably, a productivity tool embracing all the strengths Miro, Confluence, and Notion have. Dokably’s an easy-to-use app with a clear UI and a nice look and feels with comfortable data aggregation, database management, document editing, and customization.

Productboard

They say Productboard is great for making roadmaps, prioritizing features, and sharing plans and ideas with your team or stakeholders. However, I find it to be a little cumbersome, especially when it comes to the search for the items I need: the results of the search are sometimes irrelevant.
2. Project management

Jira

This project tracking software has all the needed features I need to manage my projects. Organizing all the types of tasks is super easy. However, I would rather have something more intuitive, not so flooded with unnecessary features, and faster to set up.

Clickup

This collaborative whiteboard software is very user-friendly and has a cool intuitive UI. Onboarding is very fast and easy as well. A critical disadvantage for me though is that ClickUp is too complicated for product managers’ needs and is sometimes illogical.
3. Communication

Slack

This team collaboration app seems to be irreplaceable for now. Although it’s adapted for its purposes well enough, I personally still can’t get used to its replies via threads approach.

Google Hangouts

This is a well-known service for text messaging, voice calls, and video calls. I love how easy it is to organize a video conference here. Nevertheless, if you prefer the Safari browser, you might face some issues: Google Hangouts doesn’t get along with it very well.

Zoom

Zoom is my all-time love among all communication software. Perfect interface, and perfect quality. I’ve heard that some users complain about having problems with screen sharing but you can solve this issue by re-entering the meeting (it’s probably an annoying solution but at least a simple one).
4. User survey and analytics

Typeform

I always use Typeform to collect and further interpret survey data. Love its simplicity and clear interface! Somehow, it’s designed in such a way that it feels super comfortable to fill the forms out. The only thing I don’t like about Typeform is pricing: it’s too strict, and you have to pay for each survey.

Survey Monkey

They say that it’s one of the best user survey software out there with fantastic customization abilities. I’ve never used it, although I’ve heard that its free plan and setting up process leaves much to be desired. Let me know if it’s true.

Google Analytics

This website analytics software is what literally no company can go without nowadays. The reporting and visualisation features work great. One of the main pros Google Analytics has is that it’s free to use. However, it may be complicated to configure the software properly.

Hotjar

If you lack the insights your analytics tool gives you, Hotjar might be the missing puzzle piece. It’s perfect for product marketers and product managers eager to learn more about the users’ behavior on their websites.

Amplitude

That’s my second go-to after Typeform. You can get practically any type of analytics about your product via this software. The only critical demerit for me is that it’s not as easy to use as it was a couple of years ago. Setting up Amplitude and organizing data there requires a fair amount of time.
5. Design, visualization & presentation tools

Draw.io

This is an online diagram maker and chart maker I used some years ago. Building a web whiteboard online, a flowchart or an advanced diagram is rather easy here. However, it’s a bit outdated for me, so I prefer to do everything in Miro now. If you don’t need a complex design, you can also use Dokably. It allows you to quite easily visualize ideas using tables, sticky notes, graphs, diagrams, etc.

Figma

Number one app for designing, I think. Figma is relatively easy to use, very intuitive, and has a nice simple interface. It also has a very convenient note taking feature, which adds to its collaboration functionality. However, if you're a project/product manager, you need some time to sort out how to squeeze everything from Figma - from several days to 1-2 weeks, depending on your current design skills.

Canva

I assume that it’s a modern PowerPoint killer. When I started using Canva, my presentation skills broke new ground. Besides being a creativity booster in presentation making, Canva is also a powerful free white-boarding software.
On a final note
The tool stack varies from team to team depending on their ultimate purposes. While a simple app for taking meeting notes online may be enough for personal use, it won't serve well as a knowledge base tool for an enterprise.
There are great tools for collaboration and knowledge management (Notion, Miro), project management (Jira, ClickUp), communication (Slack, Zoom), surveys and analytics (Typeform, Amplitude), design and visualization (Figma, Canva). Quite a lot, isn’t it? Setting up, configuring and switching between all these tools takes such a lot of time!
Imagine how much easier it would be to deal with team collaboration, data collection, corporate knowledge base management, note writing and sharing via only one tool.
Dokably is a good example of an all-in-one app that provides you with all these and other opportunities for easier product management.
Experimenting and making errors is a part of the process of finding the tool stack that will work for you. Try any of those I’ve mentioned in my list to cover each task separately, or give Dokably a shot: it has all chances to prove to be a multifunctional solution that will save your time and money.

Sasha Dikan,
A founder and CEO.
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