Aha!

Ease of use, thoughtful design, ability to manage backlog of ideas and promote to a roadmap and subsequently JIRA for execution

The service model that Aha! is evolving towards is self-service unless you subscribe to their Enterprise+ licensing tier and meet a certain minimum number of seats. Disappointing to not get the same level of service commitment that the company provided in their early days but they claim a "lean" servicing model per my recent discussions with their Customer Success department.

They really have thought of everything! The platform has such comprehensive functionality, everything you could need to plan, deliver and communicate your product releases. With so much content, it's a tough job to ensure users can easily learn and get value from the platform but this company is Best in Class at demo's; KB articles, how to videos and live training sessions. Everything is super clear and easy to learn. Why wouldn't you want this as a Product Manager?

Sometimes the sheer volume of "what's possible" can be overwhelming. Simple things can be hard to figure out because you didn't notice this one setting that is active. With that said, the times that I have needed to figure something out, the articles are super clear and the response time for support is unreal.

Cool logo. Good space to house personas and competitor analysis.

In the initial onboarding process I would contact customer support for clarity, seeing as how I've never used such a software. I had one phone call, fairly short. I was later tasked with sole responsibility for the software - evangelizing and coaching others on how to use it. When I reached out to support for more clarity, the reps did EVERY possible not to get on a call with me. They would email me back every other day - directing me to instructional videos - refusing to get on the phone. I needed to integrate with Jira, "Please HELP!!??"- guess what? "We have some videos that can help you.

Awful support.

As well, not very user friendly, not customizable, and just down right inferior cosmetically.

The ability to customize almost all aspects of Aha make it the choice for power users. If I can imagine it, I can probably do it. And when I can't figure out how to do it, Aha's team of professionals are there to help you out every time. The company isn't sitting on their laurels either, the engagement with customers on the Ideas portal is very active and features are constantly being added and improved.

Integration with other tools can be complex to set up, or missing for many tools. Jira integration is very important for my company, but it doesn't always have the capabilities I'd like. I'd also like to see better integration with collaboration tools like Slack, LucidSpark and PowerPoint. I realize Aha is building competitive tools for most of those, but they are not, as of yet, mature enough to make the switch to using them.

The ability to connect strategy with plans and work being done towards business objectives.

It takes some time to setup and understand but well worth the upfront effort