Hi Tom. Great question. Hopefully, we'll get a lot of replies.
My experience with PM software is limited, but I've been in product management / Development for 20 years. Aha looks like a wonderful solution (
reviews) for the planning portion, and then they share integrations with other software to help with the execution of the product development, e.g., slack, trello, jira, etc. The two-way integrations allow monitoring progress towards the plan. This type of software is closely related to project/product portfolio management software (
Reviews) (
more Reviews) (
and one more review). The issues that always pop up on these implementations are 1) what are you trying to accomplish/ scope, 2) the downfall is usually with implementation, 3) users compliance and training.
1) The scope of your implementation relates directly to your pain points or how you intend to improve your org's efficiency. If you're just looking for presentation software to help your product management team org/develop/communicate product spec.'s, new features or new products, Aha seems like a great solution. But, if you're looking for something that can get the whole organization on the same page and help with execution, that's a much more ambitious project. Aha, coupled with another product may be required. At that point, you may desire to hire someone to implement or bring in an outside consulting firm that will help you implement for your specific process. Other enterprise products have most of the features built-in,
Planisware (
Planisware vs. Aha) and
<g data-gr-id="8099" id="8099" class="gr_ gr_8099 gr-alert gr_spell ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace">Planview</g> being the ones with which I'm most familiar. Based on your website, you have a complicated product portfolio and you may need an enterprise solution that can manage from creation through launch, and eventually retirement.
2) Implementation of the software needs to take into account your current processes. If it doesn't, people will have a hard time implementing and can sap your new product development platform of the efficiencies it intended to create. It's best to identify key stakeholders upfront and have them participate in the design of the system.
3) I find the most overlooked aspect of implementing a new platform is user training and integration of the system into the culture of the product development teams. Many organizations stretch their scope and spend all of their resources on setting up a grand system, and then skimp on user training, promoting user compliance, and process integration. Thus, you end up with an overly complicated system hardly anyone wants to use. It becomes this hungry dragon that you have to keep feeding information but produces little tangible improvements. Make sure all your users (even the most curmudgeonous) are trained, not just your primary users, and be sure to develop procedures upfront if you're implementing across departments.
Hope that helps.
Steve Jambor
Launch Agents
(773) 263 9962
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Steven Jambor
Managing Director
Launch Agents, Inc.
Winnetka IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-15-2019 15:51
From: Tom Groff
Subject: Product Roadmap Tool
I am looking into a good tool to help with product management, product roadmaps, and product development. Does any one have recommendations? Aha seems to fit the bill- any experience with that?
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Tom Groff
Chief Technology Officer
Quality Vision International
Rochester NY
585-330-9755
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