In order to keep your products on track and competitive, it is becoming more critical to rely on emerging product development software and applications.
To help you find some of the most creative and best product management applications available, I want to take a brief look at three cutting-edge tools that will help you strategize and deliver on your next product model.
SensorSix –Engage your stakeholders in prioritizing product ideas
Designed for critical engagement this software helps you engage with your stakeholders and prioritize product ideas. This is an essential tool for product managers responsible for overall product design. It is designed specifically to help build and collect stakeholder collaboration. SensorSix developers knew that 86% of companies found it difficult to access and involve their stakeholders and that 61% of all product development fails or is significantly challenged. It can be helpful to those product managers who are experiencing difficulty collaborating, analyzing and planning with their stakeholders and team members.
SensorSix will help you create a repository for product plans, allowing your team to focus on priority areas for development and to keep everyone on task. Stakeholder input is available at every critical step and allows for your team to check in. The ratings system allows team members and management work together on deciding priority areas. SensorSix can not only help you gather stakeholder feedback, but also track and manage product updates at every stage.
Gartner Analysts point out important pieces of a product’s launch. Pieces that can be managed with the correct software: “Selling new products is hard. Buyers don’t know about them and there aren’t a lot of reference points. The compensation for selling new products has to get the channel interested. Many traditional providers have struggled with cloud product launches because the sale of these products retires less quota and generates less revenue for the sales representatives.”
ProdPad – Your Toolkit for Better Product Management
ProdPad’s management software will help you capture and keep track of every great idea in the product’s journey. ProdPad’s developers know that product evolution never happens in a vacuum and that tracking ideas, especially at early stages, is very difficult. They have developed technology to help keep track of critical milestones, improvements and ideas every step of the way. In this way ProdPad can help you establish a transparent product direction and build an effective road map for all of your stakeholders to see. In addition it offers custom reporting, assessments of your competitive landscape, and browser and desktop integration.
The product can help you communicate your plans visually internally and externally to customers and stakeholders with critical maps and resources. From sharing mockups to following your ideas through to the end product, ProdPad allows you to track ideas, comments and tags in order to better develop products from start to finish.
Aha! – Build What Matters
A critical road-mapping software that allows you to set your project strategy, Aha! coordinates product releases and even helps to crowd source ideas from both your customers and employees in an interactive portal. The software allows you to build and share excellent road maps with colleagues, management and customers to prepare appropriately for launches, and publications. Aha! Offers cloud-based software that allows for real time communication and collaboration with your team and customers in order to build strong products.
From defining your product to vision and strategy, Aha! Will allow your business to enhance a product vision and map key strategies and decisions. Visual road-mapping offered by Aha! Can help you create beautiful visioning documents, which will keep everyone in sync.
Gartner Analysts admit that while the technology has changed the essential process has not: “Many of the elements of a product launch haven’t changed in the nearly 20 years I have been involved in technology marketing. You still need a compelling story and narrative, there are still numerous operational processes that need to be modified and tested and providers still have to do a lot of internal enablement and external evangelism to ensure success.”
