To use the Leadtime ticket system for task management, you should first map all of your company's activities in a suitable project structure in the system. This is because every task is part of a larger project - regardless of whether it is a customer order or an internal company project.

In the everyday life of digital service companies, we typically encounter two basic types of collaboration with customers: Individual projects and ongoing projects. Both differ significantly in their structure, process and billing - and it is precisely these differences that Leadtime maps clearly and systematically.

Individual projects are clearly delineated projects with a defined start and goal. They usually begin with an offer: the service provider plans in advance which services are to be provided as part of the project and submits a corresponding calculation. The customer checks the offer and accepts it - or rejects it.

If the offer is accepted, implementation begins. It does not matter how long the implementation takes in detail - in the end, a total invoice is issued on the basis of the agreed offer. This is usually issued after project acceptance or achievement of a defined project goal.

The situation is different for ongoing projects. This form of collaboration is typically less formal and often arises after successful project collaboration, when the customer has developed a basic trust in the service provider's processes. Ongoing projects consist of a large number of individual small requests that are submitted spontaneously by the customer - for example, support requests, minor adjustments or short-term enhancements.

In these projects, there is usually no quotation calculation in advance. Instead, the service provider records their times directly on the respective tickets during the work. Billing is based on time and effort: as soon as a ticket is closed, it is transferred to the billing area. In practice, billing usually takes place on a monthly basis via a collective invoice.

Ongoing projects usually remain open permanently - they only end when the collaboration with the customer is terminated. Until then, any number of new tasks can be added, processed and invoiced.

Leadtime also makes a fundamental distinction between external and internal projects, and distinguishes between ongoing projects and individual projects within these groups. There is also a further differentiation according to the value group, i.e. whether and to what extent the project generates value for the company.

External projects are revenue-generating projects that are carried out on behalf of a customer. They are essential for the economic success of a digital services company. External projects are divided into two categories in Leadtime:

Individual external projects are clearly defined, one-off, extensive customer orders that are planned and budgeted in advance and invoiced as quoted after implementation.

Go through your order books and consider: Which large orders are currently pending in your company? Create these as individual external projects.

Ongoing external projects are intended for day-to-day business with your customers: they contain short-term, smaller requests that can be dealt with quickly and unbureaucratically without a dedicated offer document. Here, billing is based on the hours worked. Support services, maintenance contracts or long-term consulting contracts, for example, fall into this category.

Think about which of your customers you work with on an ongoing basis, i.e. which customers submit work orders themselves without any sales effort. Create an "external ongoing project" for each of these customer relationships.

As already mentioned, it is crucial for increasing productivity to record all operational processes digitally as projects and tasks - including work that is not carried out on behalf of customers. In Leadtime, "internal projects" are created for all these topics. This enables employees to book their working time precisely to specific activities.

Internal projects refer to work that the company assigns itself. Here we differentiate between indirect value-adding projects, non-value-adding projects and waste.

We recommend thinking in terms of these value groups when creating internal projects.

Analyze the established departments or working groups in your company that are indirectly involved in the value creation process, such as quality management, information security, etc. Create these as ongoing projects in value group B.

In some areas, such as product management, it may make sense to create various individual projects for all upcoming new developments and also to set up a single ongoing project for general product maintenance.

In your company, examine which continuous internal administrative activities exist, such as bookkeeping, accounting or the work of the legal department. You should create an ongoing internal project of value group C for each of these topics.

Also think about whether your company is currently working on a special administrative project, such as moving offices or preparing for a trade fair. If such projects exist, you should record them as separate projects in category C.

We have included a dedicated value group for waste in the system because it provides clarity in the evaluations.

Waste usually occurs unintentionally in the company: a failed project, for example, is actually waste, as the working time already spent cannot usually be monetized. We want to make this waste visible and therefore recommend that failed projects are subsequently converted to an individual project in the "Waste" category. And this requires a separate activity type for waste.

Another example: If the entire team is unable to work for a few hours due to an internet outage, waste is created. As this may happen more frequently, it makes sense to create an ongoing project in the Waste category for "Working time interruptions due to technical faults". Each time a malfunction occurs, the affected employees book the lost time to the corresponding project. At the end of the year, management can then easily analyze the costs incurred due to technical faults.

Occasionally, waste can even occur intentionally: An office party during a working day is certainly useful for team morale; however, the working time of the participants is definitely lost. Leadtime helps to make the hidden costs of such an event visible.

We therefore recommend creating at least one ongoing internal project for waste and creating a ticket for time bookings for each of the typical time killers in your company. Remember how working time is regularly lost in your company, be it technical faults, office parties, frequent smoking breaks and the like.