19 Best Team Productivity Tools
Productivity tools come with the territory of a PM. They are critical cogs in your project management machine. Yet here we are, facing an embarrassment of riches when it comes to choosing these tools – with more features than most can shake a stick at (and frankly, many that miss the mark).
What you need is relevance over bells and whistles and a focus on what will genuinely lift performance across your crew. That’s why this guide cuts through the fluff:
- Defining productivity tools beyond their buzzword status
- A curated selection favored by our seasoned PMs
- An honest breakdown comparing features that will actually move the needle for you
Ready to dive into functionality over flair? Let’s go.
What Are Team Productivity Tools?
Team productivity tools are the digital glue that keeps your team in sync. Here’s what they do:
- Collaboration in Real-Time: This is just a fancy way of saying ‘talking and working together online,’ so no one’s left wondering what’s going on.
- Automate Workflows: With the help of automation tools, you can cut out the menial copy-paste tasks from your day-to-day and save a lot of valuable time.
- Centralize Knowledge Bases: This is essentially a library of everything important, like processes and vital company info. Everyone can easily access and share information.
- Project Management: PM tools help you keep all those project balls in the air without dropping any – allowing you to track who’s doing what and when.
These tools are here to save us from getting tangled up in emails, spreadsheets, and sticky notes and spend our time doing valuable work.
The 19 Best Team Productivity Tools
Choosing the right tools isn’t just a box-checking exercise. When selecting a productivity tool, you want to give your team wings (or at least a really efficient jetpack).
Let’s break down what matters most when you pick a productivity tool to keep your product management team on track.
- Feature Integration: Plays well with others, so nothing falls through the cracks.
- Agile and Kanban Support: Flexes with these go-to frameworks to keep things moving without hiccups.
- User Experience (UX): Doesn’t make anyone want to throw their monitor out of the window – intuitive and engaging is the goal.
- Scalability: Ready to grow with you so nobody gets left behind as complexity climbs.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Let’s talk now, not tomorrow. Instant collaboration where teams can work on projects in real time.
- Reporting and Analytics: Get you the intel you need without digging through data dumpsters.
We’ve lined up each tool against these essential elements so that by comparison, picking becomes less guesswork and more science – perfect for thriving in an ever-evolving product management world.
Here’s our take on the 19 best contenders and what they do well (and don’t):
Tool/ Feature | Integrations | Agile/ Kanban | UX | Scalability | Collaboration | Reporting/ Analytics |
Fibery | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | |
Asana | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Trello | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Monday | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Jira | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
ClickUp | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
SmartSheet | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Wrike | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Basecamp | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
MS Teams | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Slack | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Confluence | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Notion | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Airtable | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Zoho | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Podio | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Freedcamp | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Teamwork | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |