Product development has come a long way. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way teams all over the world work. Client communication, collaboration, and sprint planning are some of the many aspects of product development that have evolved as teams went digital.

Product development now requires the involvement of cross-functional remote teams at every step of the process. So, as the way of working evolved, the requirements for selecting a product development tech stack became different.

In this article, we will take a look at the tools that you need to scale your product development in 2022 on the basis of parameters that actually matter. Let’s start by focussing on the parameters by which a product development tool should be selected.

Evaluation criteria for product development tools

Developing a product is not just limited to building something better than your competitors. It requires you to understand the target user base, build a roadmap, collaborate with multiple stakeholders, create a knowledge base for customers, and a lot more.

Here are the important parameters you should consider while choosing a tool for your product development tech stack:

1. User Interface: It needs to be clean and only contain elements useful for the team. A lot of interfaces contain a lot of noise that just slows things down.

2. Usability: How steep is the learning curve? For instance, learning to use software like Jira takes a while. Learning the ropes of a new tool should not take long.

3. Scalability: Make sure the tool of your choice will incorporate your organization’s future needs. Some tools rapidly increase the price as the number of users increases.

4. Integrations: You already have a process and the next tool should easily integrate into that. If you have to rethink your entire workflow, choosing a different tool might be useful.

5. Pricing: Last but not least, the money you spend on a tool should be proportional to the value it brings. If the tools break your budget, you will have little left for other resources.

Now that we have understood the evaluation criteria, let’s take a look at the tools that will scale your product development in 2022.

Tools you need for faster product development

Keeping in mind the various facets of product development, we have listed the tools that will assist you with different areas to scale your process. These tools will help you scale your product development process.

ZenTao: ALM and Scrum

ZenTao is an open-source Scrum tool and an application lifecycle management (ALM) solution aimed at making project management easy. It is plug-and-play with a fresh configuration that’s quite easy to learn. Serving more than 28,000 companies, ZenTao is designed to help product development teams with ALM. As it is open-source, it is easily scalable and is unlimited to commercial use, making it a viable option for companies of all sizes.

ZenTao can be integrated with Git and SVN, supports editing documents online, and comes with robust extensions and plug-ins to integrate itself with your existing process. It starts with $35.9 per user per year.

Document360: Product Documentation Software

Document360 is arguably one of the best product documentation and management tools for growing companies.It is easy to use and packed with features that will help you create internal and external knowledge bases for your product development teams and customers, respectively. It comes with a full set of documentation features such as AI-Powered search, Markdown editors, WYSIWYG, Version control, Localization, and more to help you to create User guides, User Manuals and FAQs. The platform offers comprehensive security features, including SSL and database encryption, 100% cloud-based architecture, enterprise SSO, auditing, backups, versioning, etc. It integrates with and more.The ease of collaboration even when working with remotely distributed teams has made it one of the favorites. Furthermore, it can scale up as your organization grows by accommodating your needs.

Document360 can be integrated with Zendesk, Freshdesk,Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zapier, Drift and Intercom, and analytics apps like Mixpanel and Google Optimize. Pricing starts from $99/month.

Pendo: User tracking and analysis

One of the important facets of product development is understanding how users are interacting with your product. Pendo, helps teams analyze different elements of their product and how they are received by their users. With an intuitive UI and a great dashboard, you can learn how your product is used, or rather how your users use your product within seconds. Its APIs ensure that you have all the data you need no matter how big your requirements become.

Pendo easily integrates with your existing stack. It features tens of integrations with popular tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Intercom. Pendo offers a free plan and the pricing depends on your usage pattern and needs.

ProductPlan: Roadmapping

A product roadmap gives the development strategy a direction, to say the least. The product owner, the development team, and the QA team need to continuously collaborate while setting the roadmap and ProductPlan provides just that. ProductPlan provides a flexible, easy-to-use, and collaborative platform to build, edit, and execute product roadmaps. Its visual platform can accommodate your needs no matter how big your team gets.

ProductPlan integrates with popular apps like Slack, DevOps, Git, and Zapier, thereby making it an easy choice. It starts from $39 per user per month.

Zoho Sprints: Release Management

Zoho Sprints serves as a great tool for backlog prioritization while shipping a product. During a product’s release, things can get a bit confusing and busy as lots of bugs are reported and features are requested. Zoho Sprints provides an easy-to-use platform through which the product development team can collaborate. Sharing updates, keeping an eye on the backlog, incorporating new features, and more can be easily managed while working within strict deadlines.

You can easily integrate Zoho Sprints with various Zoho apps, collaboration apps, and developer tools. Pricing begins from $6 per month per user.

Slack: Team communication

Of all the apps on this list, this is the one that is most popular and is so for good reason. Time is of the essence while working on product development. Slack is a great way of communicating with your team members, sending important files, and staying updated in every regard. Slack has a simple, easy-to-use, intuitive UI which makes it the first choice for most organizations when it comes to picking a professional messaging app.

Slack can easily integrate with your existing process and offers a free plan. Its paid plan starts from $6.67 per user per month.

That’s a Wrap

Product development doesn’t have to be slow or confusing if the tools used by the team positively contribute to the progression of the process. In this quick yet comprehensive list, we had highlighted the evaluation criteria and the tools that match those. We hope that the information provided in this article takes you one step closer to building your ideal product development tech stack.

Need more help? Check out the Zentao blog. They have more articles on product development, software management, building cross-functional teams, and so much more.