To follow up on my post last week about three new product management tools I’d heard about as of last week, I now have heard of three more.
- Reqqs – “The smart roadmap tool for product people.” Their initial release will focus, according to their website, on requirement prioritization. This is a topic with which I have some familiarity, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve done to manage this process.
- ProdPad – “Your toolkit for better product management.” Of these three products, ProdPad is the only one that’s actually available to use right now. One of their most interesting features, to me, is again a prioritization tool – in which they highlight “Quick Wins” and “Time Sinks”
- Uberito – “Revolutionary product management tooling for the cloud.” Based on the website, they seem to include some gamification aspects in the product, which I think is potentially valuable, as I’ve discussed in the past.
Of these ProdPad is the most mature, being a currently available product. Both Reqqs and Uberito are pre-release at the moment. I have not yet tried any of these, but they are all interesting based on the websites, and I hope to learn more about each of them.
As as aside, it found it curious how many of these new products position themselves as “roadmapping.” Back in my Accept days I did some research on “roadmapping” versus “requirements management” from a marketing perspective, given Marketing’s tendency to shy away from positioning Accept as a requirements management product. I’ll have more to say on this in future posts.
Thanks for the mention, Nils!
You're more than welcome to jump in and give ProdPad a try – we give a 30 day free trial and don't require credit card details.
And yep, we cover everything from the idea gathering and feature prioritization, through to the roadmapping of your product. We just launched support for product lines and seeing a high-level portfolio roadmap, too!
Thanks Janna – I will definitely be trying ProdPad out when I get a chance. One of the biggest challenges with all these tools out there is figuring out how to run a small pilot effectively (while also doing my regular job).
I know what you mean, for sure!
We've made the onboarding process on ProdPad as simple as possible, by outlining the first few steps you should take, and giving you the option to import from a spreadsheet of ideas/feature requests/backlog items.
If you ever need, I'm happy to jump on to a call with you to give you a whirlwind tour and get you up to speed with what it can really do for you 🙂
Janna
Nils, if you are not careful people are going to start calling you the "PM whisperer."
What would it take to convince you to do a review of all of the products? I suggest this as a way to further build your case that PM is the most important group in a software company, but the least "tooled" to get the job done right. It would raise awareness for the space and all of the vendors. We are trying to do what we can and I know others are pushing too.
Here are a few recent articles about Aha!
Aha! streamlines development with cloud-based project management platform
(http://www.pcworld.com/article/2046545/aha-streamlines-development-with-cloud-based-project-management-platform.html)
New SaaS startup Aha! aims to make building great products easier
(http://www.techworld.com.au/article/523671/new_saas_startup_aha_aims_make_building_great_products_easier/)
Brian
Aha! co-founder and CEO
Brian – the thought has definitely crossed my mind! Even more challenging than simply trying one or two of them out, but perhaps worth it for the glory… oh, and also to raise awareness, as you say.
Nils,
We created a product planning tool with a UX bent called Revolve, and we'd love it if you looked at it:
http://revolveapp.com/
We focus on interviewing customers, developing personas, and collaborating on feature design.
Thanks!
Thanks Ross – definitely will take a look and give a mention on the blog as soon as possible.
Hi Nils,
Allow me to jump into this great conversation! 🙂
I was wondering if you are still planning on reviewing all those product tools you mentioned above. If so, I would also like you to consider OneDesk, it's a full suite of tools for the product development process- everything from ideation, requirements management through to project management 🙂 Here is our site: http://www.onedesk.com. Of course I would love to hear your feedback!
Cheers,
Catherine Constantinides
OneDesk Inc.
Hi Catherine – I’d definitely love to add OneDesk into my evaluation, when I manage to get to it (it’s going to be a big project!).