Start with the job the tool does
A tool name is often shorthand for an activity. “Put it in Jira” means record work in a tracker; “add it to Confluence” means write down information people can find later. Teams may use several tools for the same job, so the useful question is where their agreed plan or latest status lives. The software development lifecycle shows how these activities fit together.
Plan and track work
- Jira records tasks, bugs, and requests and tracks their progress.
- Miro gives people a shared whiteboard for workshops and early ideas.
Share documents and decisions
- Confluence organises team pages and knowledge.
- Notion combines documents, wikis, and simple databases.
- Google Workspace includes Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive for creating and sharing files.
- SharePoint holds Microsoft 365 team sites, pages, and document libraries.
Design and discuss
- Figma is used for screen designs and prototypes.
- Slack and Microsoft Teams host team conversations and meetings.
Build and test software
- Visual Studio Code is an editor for working on code.
- GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket are Git hosting providers for shared code and reviews.
- Postman sends API requests and groups them into reusable collections.
Run and learn from a product
- Datadog helps teams monitor a running service.
- Analytics tools help teams understand how people use a product.
These are examples, not a required set of tools. A team should be clear about which tool holds the current answer, who can access it, and who keeps it up to date.