Which tools do you use for better product management?

[Ana Kacarska]

I'm new to product management and was wondering do you use any applications, templates, predefined set of doc to keep your products on track and keep everybody in the loop?

[Stewart]

There are all kinds of tools, I am somewhat biased but the 280 Group did a review of a bunch.
http://www.280group.com/productmanagementsoftwarecomparison.htm

[Val]

We have created a few templates for BRDs/MRDs, communication templates and creative briefs. Are you using Agile development or more traditional waterfall? A great resource for communication and planning documents, that I've used a lot, is Project Connections http://projectconnections.com/. They have a paid membership, but many templates are also free.

What issue are you most struggling with? Buy in to the vision? status updates? understanding the features?

I'd be happy to provide some templates and work flow if you let me know what areas you're wanting to fine tune.

Val

[Ana Kacarska]

Val,
Thanks a lot for the link. Seems like a very good base for templates. I'm sure that I will find something useful. At the moment I'm definitely struggling with "Buy in to the vision" and I'm looking for templates for creating product roadmaps and product calendar. But ANYTHING else will be useful since I'm very new in this field.

And yes, we are using Agile development.

Thanks again and keep in touch.

Ana

Val said:

We have created a few templates for BRDs/MRDs, communication templates and creative briefs. Are you using Agile development or more traditional waterfall? A great resource for communication and planning documents, that I've used a lot, is Project Connections http://projectconnections.com/. They have a paid membership, but many templates are also free.

What issue are you most struggling with? Buy in to the vision? status updates? understanding the features?

I'd be happy to provide some templates and work flow if you let me know what areas you're wanting to fine tune.

Val

[Bruce Scheer]

Hi Ana,

I am personally a big fan of mindmapping tools. I just posted on this in the new resources section of this site.

Regards, Bruce