9 ways to use an online whiteboard in product management
Last updated: June 2024
How often do you use an online whiteboard? If you are a product manager, an online whiteboard is probably your go-to for activities such as brainstorming and sprint retrospectives. It is a handy tool for thinking through concepts in a visual, nonlinear way. And it offers a central place for virtual collaboration (making online whiteboards especially popular on remote and hybrid teams).
But what about the other jobs you have to do — feature prioritization or presenting your roadmap, for instance? Ever try a whiteboard?
You can use an online whiteboard at any stage of product development. You rely on innovative thinking and cross-functional collaboration throughout the entire process of building a product, both of which whiteboards are excellent for. So it makes sense that they have a place in your workflows, from discovery to delivery (and we happen to have a few ideas on how to implement them).
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It is likely that you already use an online whiteboard for a few of these use cases, but we hope that some ideas in this list will be new to you. Let's go over some examples of how product managers can use whiteboards in each of the nine stages of product development:
1. Strategize: Shape product strategy
Product managers set the product strategy. As you think about goals and initiatives as well as the broader direction for your product, whiteboards can be useful for envisioning what you want to achieve. Strategic analysis, modeling, and artifacts — get it all done quickly and collaboratively in a visual space.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Define your high-level approach with a business model or lean canvas.
Run a SWOT analysis and check out competitors.
Capture first-draft personas, positioning, and value propositions.
Related:
Craft elements of your strategy and share everything with stakeholders in Aha! Whiteboards.
2. Capture: Map out customer ideas
You gather, sort, and evaluate feedback from various sources to better understand what customers really want and need. Between your research and interview notes, this work can be a lot to sift through. So try exploring ideas on a whiteboard to see whether key themes emerge.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Create an empathy map to explore customer perspectives, needs, and feelings.
Sketch out the entire customer journey.
Frame the customer problems you want to solve.
Work with product marketing to define the target audience.
Did you know? If you use Aha! Roadmaps, you can gather customer feedback via an ideas portal and pull it straight into a whiteboard. (Aha! Roadmaps includes Aha! Ideas Essentials, Aha! Whiteboards Essentials, and Aha! Knowledge Essentials to provide a complete product management solution.)
3. Explore: Brainstorm and refine concepts
Brainstorming is the obvious use case, right? But product managers can do more with whiteboards in this stage than you might realize — it is not all freewheeling sticky notes. You can also add structure and get feedback on the concepts you come up with in preparation for the next stage.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Host a live collaboration session with a timer and voting tools.
Give structure to ideas with diagrams (a fishbone, for instance).
Invite stakeholders to leave asynchronous comments with ease.
Validate your ideas' feasibility with a visual proof of concept.
4. Plan: Collaborate on early-stage planning
Prioritizing what to build next is a key part of any product manager's role. Backlog management and feature scoring are effective, but an online whiteboard can be helpful when you want to get more hands-on with your plans.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Identify features that best support your product strategy on a 2x2 matrix.
Sketch out release plans before committing to them.
Plan how to involve stakeholders in upcoming work.
Related:
Plot out and vote on priorities as a team in Aha! Whiteboards.
5. Showcase: Show off with a whiteboard
Roadmaps and presentations — both are key assets when you need to showcase your plans. Could you add whiteboards to that list? We think so. Whiteboards offer a convenient way to share early versions of your plans before building out a robust, dynamic timeline.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Create simple roadmaps quickly (such as a Now, Next, Later view).
Switch into presentation mode to show any whiteboard views, including slides.
Share a read-only version of your whiteboard for stakeholder updates.
Explore whiteboard templates for roadmapping and presentations.
6. Build: Prep development and design work
Ready to build? Whiteboards are beneficial here too. After all, they provide a central, visual place to come together with the broader product team. Product managers can use whiteboards to connect with UX and development teams as work gets underway.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Mock up wireframes and iterate with the UX team.
Build user story maps to convey the meaning behind new functionality.
Engage in sprint planning (or even PI planning if you use the Scaled Agile Framework®).
Use an online whiteboard for PI planning. With Aha! Whiteboards, confidence voting is built in.
7. Document: Enhance with visuals
New features mean new documentation. As you prepare to launch new enhancements to your product, you want to prepare customers for how they work and how to use them — visual aids can be a big help in doing so.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Draw technical diagrams to show how things work.
Embed diagrams in release notes and support articles.
8. Launch: Add color to release plans
Lots of communication happens around any launch. As a product manager, it is part of your job to help the team deliver on time and inform cross-functional teams of what they need to know. Whiteboarding can be an easy way to be more effective during this stage.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Visualize key dates with go-to-market calendars and timelines.
Plan how to timebox your busy schedule during launch week.
Communicate any pricing updates to customer success or sales.
9. Analyze: Reflect together
Post-launch, allow yourself a moment to celebrate and reflect on all you have accomplished. Bring your product team together on a whiteboard one more time to share feedback for the future.
How to use an online whiteboard:
Hold a retrospective session.
React to one another's input to encourage discussion.
Aha! Whiteboards for product development
Incorporating an online whiteboard into your daily work as a product manager is great. But we think it is even better if your whiteboard tool is designed purposefully for the job. That is why we built Aha! Whiteboards for product teams. You can visualize complex concepts, come together with stakeholders, craft beautiful wireframes, and even connect directly to your live roadmap. Curious to learn more? Check out the FAQs, watch the video below, and try it for yourself.
FAQs about Aha! Whiteboards
What is Aha! Whiteboards?
Aha! Whiteboards is the visual space for product innovation. It is the only purpose-built whiteboard software for product teams — designed to help you jump-start creativity, share visual concepts, and collaborate on early-stage plans with nearly 100 whiteboard templates for product development. Product teams can also use Aha! Whiteboards seamlessly with Aha! Roadmaps. This means you can go from whiteboards to your roadmap (and back again) in a couple of clicks.
Who uses Aha! Whiteboards?
Aha! Knowledge is part of our suite of product development software — built with product managers and product teams in mind. Stakeholders and other groups wanting to collaborate in the same whiteboard tool can also benefit from this product.
What is included in Aha! Whiteboards?
Aha! Whiteboards Essentials includes everything you need to brainstorm and refine concepts as a team, such as templates, intuitive drawing and diagramming tools, unlimited guest sharing, and live collaboration. If you are looking for more complex functionality (such as wireframing and interactive voting and timer tools), take a look at Aha! Whiteboards Advanced.
