PM Tools Overview

Tools Support the Job, They Are Not the Job

Product managers use software every day, but the tools do not make you good at product management. They help you think, collaborate, and keep everyone informed. Each company chooses slightly different tools, so learn the purpose of each category rather than memorising buttons.

In this lesson we look at five widely used tools: Figma, Notion, Jira, Miro and Mixpanel. You will meet them at startups and larger companies around the world, from Lagos to London to San Francisco.

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1. Figma: Design and Prototypes

What it is: A browser-based design tool where designers create screens, components and clickable prototypes.

Why PMs use it:

• Review designs and leave comments directly on screens.
• Click through prototypes to check the flow before engineers build anything.
• Share prototypes with users for quick feedback.
• Check that designs cover edge cases such as error messages, empty states and slow connections.

PM tip: You do not need to be a designer. Learn to read a Figma file, use comments, and switch to "Prototype" mode. Ask designers to include a low-data or offline state, since many users, in Nigeria, India, Brazil and rural areas everywhere, have unreliable networks.

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2. Notion: Documentation and Knowledge

What it is: A flexible workspace for notes, documents, wikis and simple databases.

Why PMs use it:

• Write product requirements documents (PRDs) and meeting notes.
• Keep a single source of truth for decisions: what did we decide, and why?
• Maintain research repositories with interview notes and insights.
• Build lightweight roadmaps and task databases.

PM tip: Write things down. A decision that lives only in a chat thread will be forgotten or misremembered. Keep documents short, with a clear title, owner and date.

Similar tools: Confluence, Google Docs, Coda.

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3. Jira: Planning and Tracking Work

What it is: A project-tracking tool built around tickets (also called issues). Each ticket describes a piece of work such as a user story, a bug or a task.

Why PMs use it:

• Maintain the backlog, the prioritised list of upcoming work.
• Plan sprints, the short cycles (usually two weeks) in which engineers commit to a set of tickets.
• See progress on a board with columns like To Do, In Progress, In Review and Done.
• Link tickets to a bigger goal so everyone knows why the work matters.

PM tip: Write clear tickets. A good ticket says who the user is, what they want, why, and how we will know it is done (the acceptance criteria). Avoid dumping vague one-liners on engineers.

Similar tools: Linear, Asana, Trello, ClickUp.

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4. Miro: Workshops and Visual Thinking

What it is: An online whiteboard with sticky notes, shapes, arrows and templates.

Why PMs use it:

• Run brainstorms and workshops with remote or hybrid teams.
• Map user journeys, for example how a new customer signs up and makes a first payment.
• Create affinity maps: group interview notes into themes.
• Draw process flows and system diagrams to align on how things work.

PM tip: Use a whiteboard when the problem is fuzzy and needs discussion. Once the group agrees, record the outcome in Notion so it is not lost.

Similar tools: FigJam, Mural.

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5. Mixpanel: Product Analytics

What it is: A product analytics tool that records what users do inside your app or website, such as clicking a button, completing signup or paying for an order. These are called events.

Why PMs use it:

• Build funnels to see where users drop off, for example: open app, enter amount, confirm, success.
• Measure retention: do users come back after day 1, day 7, day 30?
• Segment users by device, city or acquisition source.
• Check whether a new feature is being used and whether it changed behaviour.

PM tip: Decide what you want to measure before the feature is built. Ask engineers to add tracking for the key events, otherwise you will launch and have no data.

Similar tools: Amplitude, Google Analytics, PostHog, Heap.

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Which Tool for Which Job?

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A Workflow That Ties Them Together

Here is how the tools fit into one real piece of work, for example improving a bill-payment flow at a fintech in a market like Nigeria or the UK:

1. Mixpanel shows that 35% of users abandon the flow at the confirmation screen.
2. You interview users and use Miro to cluster the reasons: worry about wrong account numbers, unclear fees, slow responses.
3. The team brainstorms fixes in Miro, and you record the chosen approach in a Notion PRD.
4. The designer creates new screens in Figma, and you test the prototype with a handful of customers.
5. Engineers pick up tickets from the backlog in Jira and ship in a sprint.
6. After launch, you return to Mixpanel to see whether abandonment fell.

That loop of measure, understand, decide, design, build and measure again is the daily rhythm of product work.

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Choosing Tools Wisely

• Start with the problem. Do not adopt a tool because it is fashionable.
• Keep it simple. A small team can succeed with a shared document and a Trello board.
• Be consistent. Agree where each type of information lives so people know where to look.
• Mind the cost. Many tools have free tiers that are enough for learning and small teams, which is helpful when foreign-currency subscriptions are expensive.