1. Static Gantt Charts in a Dynamic World

Gantt charts look great in kickoff presentations. They give a sense of control – colored bars, dependencies, milestones neatly aligned. But they're just snapshots in time.

As soon as real work begins, tasks get delayed, scope changes, priorities shift – and suddenly the chart is outdated.

Updating it is time-consuming, so most teams don't bother. Instead, the plan slowly drifts away from reality. People work on what's urgent, not what's on the chart. And the carefully crafted plan becomes a pretty picture with no operational value.

47% of Agile projects are late, over budget, or result in unhappy customers, often due to poor visibility, resource bottlenecks, and shifting priorities. The problem: Gantt charts were built for a different era – for linear, phase-based projects. Digital projects, however, live in a world of constant change.

2. No Connection Between Planning and Execution

In many companies, planning happens in one tool (often Excel or MS Project), while the actual work lives in another (ticketing systems, Slack, time trackers). This disconnect creates friction:

• Plans are based on assumptions, not live data

• Tasks are duplicated or forgotten between tools

• Leadership plans strategically – teams work tactically – and the two worlds never quite meet

The result is predictable: outdated plans, frustrated project managers, and teams improvising their way through delivery.

3. Excel as a Planning Lifeline

When project tools fall short, Excel swoops in as the hero – and quickly turns into the villain. Spreadsheets are flexible but fragile. They break with one wrong cell reference, don't scale across multiple teams, and rely on manual upkeep.

A single complex project can still be managed this way. But with multiple projects, distributed teams, and changing priorities, Excel becomes a liability. Capacity planning turns into guesswork, and decision-making becomes reactive instead of data-driven.

What Works Instead: Planning as a Living Process

The problem isn't planning itself – it's how planning is done. Static, disconnected methods don't fit the pace of digital work. Modern teams need living planning systems that evolve with their projects.

Here's what that looks like.

1. Ticket-Based Planning as the Foundation

Forget planning around abstract milestones. Start with real tickets. Tickets represent actual work: they have owners, estimated effort, context, and links to projects.

When your plan is built on tickets, it automatically stays relevant. A new client request? Create a ticket. A bug appears? Ticket. Scope changes? Adjust tickets. The plan and the actual workload are always in sync – because they're the same thing.

Concrete example:

An e-commerce agency in Stuttgart – about 40 employees, specialized in shop systems – switched from Excel-based project plans to a ticket-based system in 2023.

The difference? Before: Weekly meetings where the project manager manually transferred tasks from a spreadsheet into a Kanban board. Constantly outdated data. Developers didn't know what was coming next.

After: Every request gets created directly as a ticket. Every ticket has an owner, estimate, status. The board is the plan. No duplicate work. No outdated documents.

Result after three months: 35% less coordination overhead, teams work more focused, project managers have real real-time data instead of gut feeling.

2. Real-Time Resource Planning

Capacity planning is only useful if it reflects reality. Instead of trying to forecast based on outdated assumptions, modern planning tools visualize weekly team capacity:

• Who is available?

• How much time do they have?

• Where are bottlenecks forming?

By aligning planned work with actual availability, you prevent over-allocation before it happens. Vacations, sick days, and holidays are factored in – no more overpromising based on "theoretical" team capacity.

3. Iterative Sprint Planning Instead of Waterfall

Long-term plans look nice, but reality rarely cooperates. That's why successful teams plan iteratively: in weekly or biweekly sprints.

This approach doesn't mean you give up on long-term thinking – it means you build in structured flexibility. You focus on what's relevant now, adapt quickly, and keep everyone aligned.

Instead of rigid Gantt charts, you get living plans that breathe with your project's rhythm.

How Leadtime Makes It Work

Leadtime is designed exactly for this shift – from static planning to living planning.

Big Picture: Customer-Focused Project Overview

Big Picture is the first step in the planning chain. It shows all tasks of a project as visually organized cards, divided by task types (features, bugs, etc.). Within these categories, tasks can be prioritized based on importance.

Use case: A project manager coordinates with the customer and discusses which features or bugs currently have the highest priority. This helps the customer set a clear order for their requests and keep focus on the most urgent tasks.

Goal: Structured, visual overview of tasks within a project – easier coordination between customer and agency.

Pools: Cross-Project Prioritization

Pools expand Big Picture to the multi-project level. Project managers usually handle several clients at the same time and have to balance priorities between these projects.

The pool is a multi-project dashboard where you see the tasks of all your managed clients together.

Use case: A project manager who manages several clients sees the prioritized tickets from different projects side by side in their pool. This way, they can decide which tasks will bring the most value to the company in the coming days.

Additionally: The team lead can intervene in the pools and set strategic priorities, like highlighting especially high-revenue tasks.

Goal: Project managers prioritize across projects and ensure that the most important tasks get done first – for maximum customer satisfaction and company value.

Pipeline: Team Resource Planning

The pipeline is used for weekly assignment of tasks to team members – mostly developers or specialized experts. It's about using team members' capacities efficiently and setting a smart order for execution.

The pipeline distributes tasks across projects and clients for the week and shows how much working time each developer has available.

Use case: In a weekly meeting, every team member brings in their prioritized tickets from their own pool. The team lead moderates and decides together with the team which tasks should be done in what order and with what resource allocation.

Visualization: The pipeline splits each day into 15-minute sections and gives an overview of how much capacity is available and how the work is distributed over the week.

Goal: The pipeline serves as a planning tool to distribute tasks to specialists in a smart order and get the most out of available resources.

Stacks: Individual Work Plan

The stack is the final tool in the planning chain and provides the individual task list for every specialist. The tasks that have been set in the pipeline for an employee show up in their stack in the set order.

The stack acts as a personalized Kanban board, clearly structuring the workflow and helping you work through tasks productively.

Use case: A developer sees all their assigned tasks in the "To do" column of their stack at the start of the week. They work through the tasks one after another. If they run into an issue or need feedback, they can move the ticket to the "Request feedback" column and assign it to the responsible colleague. This pauses the progress on the task and they can focus on the next one.

Goal: Stacks reduce follow-up questions and let developers get their work done with focus and without interruptions.

Instant Adaptation

Adjusting priorities updates team boards automatically. Developers always see what's next – without manual reshuffling.

Total Transparency

Everyone, from management to team members, sees the same live plan. No more "two versions of reality."

This isn't planning theater – it's operational control.

Conclusion: Ditch the Plan, Keep Planning

Traditional project planning doesn't fail because it's wrong – it fails because it was built for a different era. In digital service companies, where change is constant and speed matters, plans can't be static documents.

They need to be living systems that are connected to real work, responsive to change, and transparent for everyone involved.

Leadtime bridges the gap between plan and reality. It turns planning from a one-off exercise into a continuous, dynamic process – giving your team clarity, focus, and the ability to deliver reliably, even when the world around you keeps changing.