How Armin Stadler's Team Streamlines Complex Projects with Planyway for JIRA

When it comes to managing complex projects, juggling a tech-oriented team, and ensuring seamless collaboration, Armin Stadler’s team stands out. Working in the food industry, his company, Insort, develops specialized machinery with global reach, requiring flexibility and precision in every phase of their projects. Here, Armin shares insights on their workflow, the value of Planyway for Jira, and a few challenges his team is navigating as they optimize productivity and cost-efficiency.

Key takeaways

• Divide and conquer – Use Jira for project-wide planning and Planyway for team-level task management, helping each team focus on relevant details.
• Visualize and simplify – Use Planyway’s visual tools to keep tasks organized and transparent, fostering a collaborative work environment.
• Foster autonomy and motivation – With Planyway, team members can independently manage their tasks within a clear visual framework, increasing engagement and motivation.

Interview with Armin

Sergey: Armin, thank you for joining us! To kick things off, could you give us an overview of how your team uses Jira and Planyway?

Armin: Absolutely. We have about 70 people on Jira, including several satellite teams in the US, Canada, and Europe. Jira is our go-to for high-level project planning, but we’ve also integrated Planyway to manage team-level tasks. 

Sergey: Can you tell us how you divide responsibilities between Jira and Planyway?

Armin: Certainly. We use Jira Plans with start date–due date  to manage broad project overviews—departments, timelines, and major milestones—giving us the ability to manage the high-level project overview for the entire company. With Planyway, we focus on micromanaging the tasks at the team level. Team leaders can assign specific tasks to members, set target start–target end dates which helps avoid confusion and ensures everyone knows exactly what they’re working on.

Sergey: You mentioned milestones—can you tell us more about how those work in your system?

Armin: In our workflow, the milestones serve as an interface between Jira and Planyway. We created a custom issue type in Jira called Milestone which uses the due date field. Our project management teams track all the critical dates in Jira, but we end up having to re-create milestones in Planyway for task management. It’s double work, which isn’t ideal. This interface between the two plans ensures the project stays on track without causing chaos, as the team managers are able to manage the tasks in Planyway without disrupting the larger goals in Jira.

"By integrating Jira for high-level planning and Planyway for task-level management, we ensure our projects stay on track without chaos—team leaders manage tasks seamlessly, while milestones keep everything aligned between the two systems."

Sergey: That’s excellent feedback, and it’s something we’ll definitely investigate further. In the meantime, how do your team members view and interact with their tasks in Planyway?

Armin: It’s pretty straightforward for them. Our team members can see all their assignments in Planyway, and we use color-coding for different types of tasks to make it easy to scan. Managers assign tasks and set start and end dates, so team members have a clear visual overview. They check off tasks as they progress, which keeps everything transparent and up-to-date.

Sergey: Based on your experience, what advice would you give to other companies looking to set up a similar workflow with Jira and Planyway?

Armin: I’d say make use of Planyway’s team-oriented views to keep everyone informed and avoid micromanagement.

Sergey: Thanks for sharing your insights, Armin!

Armin: Thanks, Sergey!