Product Development vs Product Management Tools: Key Differences

by Tech Addict Writer, Blogger

Businesses across industries survive, of course, on the development and delivery of various services and products. And to execute these functions, they typically use multiple solutions and tools, such as product development and product management tools. However, more often than not, people end up confusing the two as the same, which is decidedly not the case. You see, both these types of product tools serve distinctive functions; not only that — both of them are meant to serve different purposes and relying on one to fulfill the functions. It often causes teams such as engineering, product management, etc. to suffer the brunt.

To help address this confusion and support companies and executives better and more informed decisions, we put together this handy guide that elucidates the differences between the two.

1. Product development tools: The fundamental goal of these tools, such as software product development services, is to help the team tasked with the responsibility to help build the product following the goals set out by the company, including the product management team. Such tools dabble with architecture, software development, quality testing, etc.

a. Benefits

• They help companies optimize financial resources and budgets via analysis of available resources, supplies, etc. and offer suggestions about alternative resources.

• Such tools also help track the entire development process, starting from tracking input material, monitoring quality, etc. and see to the development of high-quality end products.

b. Disadvantages

• They are not meant to help teams identify target users’ requirements or even identify priorities.

• This category of tools is primarily meant to deal with execution, i.e., making the product. This means they are of little to no help when planning the product, the necessary features based on the market’s requirements, etc.

• Using just product development tools can often result in meaningful steps such as understanding customers’ requirements being skipped.

2. Product management tools: These tools essentially help teams keep track of all projects related to the product, intending to help serve the ultimate objective of facilitating the company’s performance and goals.

a. Benefits

• Such tools help the company gather all relevant data to understand their customers’ requirements better.

• They also aid the product management team in analyzing the feasibility of product proposals.

• Another critical role product management tools perform enabling the team to gauge and ensure that the product and its provisions are in sync with the organization’s overall goals.

b. Disadvantages

• Easily one of the most glaring disadvantages of product management tools is that it doesn’t deal with the requisite technology — at least not nearly as much as it does with other tangential aspects of the process.

• These tools are typically quite expensive and can burn a hole in the company’s metaphorical pockets.

• Though they serve a crucial goal, it can be pretty challenging to learn how to use them. Long story short, they generally have a steep learning curve.

These two are, clearly, vastly different types of tools. However, that is not to say that one can not work with the other. Experts across the globe suggest using the two in a strategized conjunction so that the product management process can help complement and ameliorate the product development process.