Best practices for engineering managers

At a glance, Productboard may seem purpose-built for product managers (and it is!), but we recognize that PMs are only one part of the EPD triangle. Engineers are key to building great products that work efficiently, and it's important to us that Productboard integrates with your engineering management system.

Here are some tips from our own developers on how to become a Productboard power user and better integrate it into your day-to-day processes, whether you're just getting started or you've already built your first engineering boards. 

In this article:

• Set up your workflows
• Use integrations
• Prioritize features
• Collaborate with other teams
• Get feedback from users

Set up your workflows

Productboard allows you to create custom workflows, teamspaces, and folders for your engineering projects, which means you can define the stages of your development process, from ideation to launch and post-launch, and track your progress through each stage. By setting up your workflows and customizing them to your team's needs, you'll be able to work more efficiently and effectively.

Productboard makes your team’s work predictable and minimizes the need for status reporting. Managing your team’s backlog keeps it in sync with other tools (see the section Use integrations below), while at the same time, all work items are linked to the objectives hierarchy for the whole organization.

For more information, see Getting started with Productboard teamspaces.

Use integrations

Productboard integrates with various tools, such as Jira, Trello, GitHub, and more. Connecting these tools to Productboard allows you to streamline your workflow and keep all your information in one place. For example, you can push new and link existing GitHub and Jira issues to Productboard features for a two-way sync to track progress and get updates without switching between platforms.

For more information, see Pushing features and subfeatures into Jira.

Prioritize features

As an engineering team, you'll want to focus on technically feasible features aligned with your roadmap. Productboard helps you prioritize your features based on user feedback, business goals, and other factors. Use Productboard's prioritization tools to ensure you're first working on the most critical features.

For more information, see Use the user impact score to surface your top-requested features

Collaborate with other teams

Productboard is designed to facilitate collaboration between teams, including engineering, product, design, and customer support. You can use the platform to share information, get feedback, manage dependencies, and stay aligned with other teams. For instance, you can use Productboard to share your development roadmap with the product team so that they can plan their own roadmap around your work.

For more information, see Plan releases to decide what to deliver when.

Get feedback from users

Productboard makes it easy to collect user feedback and incorporate it into your development process. You can create Insights boards where users can submit feature requests, bug reports, and other feedback. Furthermore, you can use Productboard to analyze user feedback and identify trends so that you can make data-driven decisions about your roadmap.

For more information, see Help your organization understand what users need.

By following these best practices, you can make the most of Productboard and improve your engineering team's productivity, predictability, and collaboration. Making Productboard part of your day-to-day workflow requires dedicated time and effort. What would make this process easier is if the whole team used Productboard together during any stage of product development. After all, Productboard is best when used with the entire team, which will help you build products that meet and exceed your customers' needs.

school Productboard Academy Content

To further enhance your Productboard skills and explore advanced features, we invite you to check out the Productboard Academy. It offers a wide range of courses and webinars curated specifically for engineers like you, helping you extract the maximum value from the platform. So, don't hesitate to dive into the Productboard Academy and continue your journey towards becoming a Productboard power user. 

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