About Us
The Meisterplan Team
Learn more about our team who is ready to work together with you to achieve success!
At Meisterplan, we help companies around the world make the right decisions. We live in a dynamic world that never stands still. This means that project plans have to be adapted often. Priorities can change daily, as can employee availability.
We have found that successful companies aren’t afraid of these changes, but even thrive in times of change. What really matters is flexibility in planning and the ability to make quick and agile decisions, which leads to delivering better results in the long-term.
We have made it our mission to provide the tools companies need to successfully anticipate and adapt to changes so that they can accelerate growth. The combination of Meisterplan, our cloud software for project portfolio management and capacity planning along with our Lean PPM™ framework ensures companies achieve more adaptability, agility and success in decision-making. This leads to setting the right priorities and successfully delivering the best results. Are you ready?
Our Mission
At Meisterplan, we help companies around the world make the right decisions. We live in a dynamic world that never stands still. This means that project plans have to be adapted often. Priorities can change daily, as can employee availability.
We have found that successful companies aren’t afraid of these changes, but even thrive in times of change. What really matters is flexibility in planning and the ability to make quick and agile decisions, which leads to delivering better results in the long-term.
We have made it our mission to provide the tools companies need to successfully anticipate and adapt to changes so that they can accelerate growth. The combination of Meisterplan, our cloud software for project portfolio management and capacity planning along with our Lean PPM framework ensures companies achieve more adaptability, agility and success in decision-making. This leads to setting the right priorities and successfully delivering the best results. Are you ready?
By 2013, Meisterplan was born. Originally, Meisterplan was meant to be a strategic resourcing and analytics add-on to other PPM software like CA PPM, and many people really liked it. We felt like we were on the right track. After a short time, we started being approached by other people who were interested in using Meisterplan as a stand-alone tool. That’s when it clicked. We realized that there is a much bigger group of people who experience difficulties managing multiple projects, and Meisterplan is the solution. It can be used with other PM and PPM solutions or it can work all on its own.
In 2015, Christoph Hirnle joined the Meisterplan team. He led the way to our discovery of what people really need, which is to make plans that work. So, we made that our mission, to help everyone involved in projects make plans that work. So, together, let’s make a Meisterplan.
The Story of Meisterplan
In the late 90s, while they were still students, Johannes Koppenhoefer and Joerg Leute started a business called itdesign, and by 2011, despite a few bumps along the way, that business was thriving and continuing to expand. Johannes and Joerg realized from a young age that a key element to success is the ability to adapt and keep up with the ever-changing world of business. With this in mind, they were ready to come up with the next great idea.
So, they talked to numerous clients and people managing multiple projects to find out what was missing. After many discussions, many walks around picturesque Tuebingen and a few beers (hey, we are in Germany after all), they realized that there was a need for a tool specializing in strategic project portfolio management and resource planning. Then they got to work with their team of developers.
Here’s What We Believe…
Our Customers Always Come First
Our goal at Meisterplan is to help business leaders deliver the best results by improving the management of projects and capacity planning. That’s why we take the time to help our customers adapt their project portfolio to make the best decisions. We pay attention to all of the feedback from our customers and develop the features that make their jobs easier. We have a Customer Success Team whose focus is helping customers get the most out of Meisterplan and find a PPM process that really works. We strive to interact and co-innovate with our customers. And, it goes without saying that part of putting our customers first includes protecting their data, which is something we take very seriously.
Meisterplan Is More Than Just Software
Software alone is not the solution to overcoming issues in project portfolio management. It is a tool in the hands of people who are part of a team and a company. We took that to heart. The result was a realization that a tool is only as good as the method or framework it supports. The framework we recommend is Lean Project Portfolio Management or Lean PPM™. We are always working to improve the Lean PPM™ framework, and with every update, our software gets better at supporting that lean and dynamic process. We are proud that more than 1,000 professionals from all types of industries are supporting us in developing Lean PPM™ into the best framework for decision-making.
We’re An Awesome Team
At Meisterplan, we are a team, and we think we’re a pretty awesome team at that! We care about each other. We ask questions and challenge our actions to push each other to peak performance. Each Meisterplanner contributes to our culture, and we are proud of all we achieved together. We developed a new PPM method. We developed software that we love and that gets better all the time. We have over 300 (and counting) happy customers. That’s no coincidence! Our positive team dynamic is contagious. Our management team cares about and treats all employees equally, and together we do everything we can to further strengthen each other.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
– John F. Kennedy
Our management team is not just concerned with the development and growth of our software. They recognize that Meisterplan is the framework and the tool, and they focus on learning what is most important when making plans and managing project portfolios. They are using what they learn from people around the world to develop a new way to do project portfolio management: Lean PPM™. The combination of their willingness to learn and work together with people worldwide and their decades of experience at renowned technology and consulting companies make our management team leaders we are extraordinarily proud of.
Christoph Hirnle
CEO
The only way to bribe Christoph is through food. If you don’t happen to have any good food on hand, you might also try music. He loves good music, and is happy that it’s much easier to find now with Spotify. He doesn’t like when situations become unnecessarily hectic because people didn’t put enough thought into it beforehand. Or worse, because they didn’t share the information in a timely manner.
He is really proud when his colleagues achieve success that he didn’t have anything to do with. His mission is to work together with customers to make plans that really work. He invented the Lean PPM™ method, and he welcomes everyone who works on it and contributes to its continuous improvement.
Christoph has a PhD from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, and 15 years of professional experience. His experience includes working for 7 years as a Management Consultant for the Boston Consulting Group. He also served as the Managing Director at 3C Deutschland.
Johannes Koppenhöfer
CEO
The only way to bribe Johannes is through food. Oh wait, you just read that about Christoph, but seriously Johannes is an even bigger foodie than Christoph. He is also a brilliant pianist. He has said that you don’t have to start off as an expert piano player, but you should strive to improve your playing every day. He applies that same principle to Meisterplan. He doesn’t think that our method and tool should be perfect from day one, but we should do our best, listen to our customers and make improvements every day.
Johannes really cares about our customers. If someone from the Meisterplan team has recently talked to a customer, Johannes wants to hear about it. He takes time out of his busy schedule to hear what the customer had to say, addressing any concerns, connecting them with the right Meisterplanner or even calling them back himself.
Johannes loves building a solution that really helps solve customers’ problems, and the best reward is the smiles on their faces when their plans really work. As you read in the Meisterplan story, Johannes has nearly 20 years’ experience in CRM and PPM software as one of the founders and owners of itdesign GmbH, and CEO at Meisterplan.
Christoph Hirnle
CEO
The only way to bribe Christoph is through food. If you don’t happen to have any good food on hand, you might also try music. He loves good music, and is happy that it’s much easier to find now with Spotify. He doesn’t like when situations become unnecessarily hectic because people didn’t put enough thought into it beforehand. Or worse, because they didn’t share the information in a timely manner.
He is really proud when his colleagues achieve success that he didn’t have anything to do with. His mission is to work together with customers to make plans that really work. He invented the Lean PPM method, and he welcomes everyone who works on it and contributes to its continuous improvement.
Christoph has a PhD from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, and 15 years of professional experience. His experience includes working for 7 years as a Management Consultant for the Boston Consulting Group. He also served as the Managing Director at 3C Deutschland.
Johannes Koppenhöfer
CEO
The only way to bribe Johannes is through food. Oh wait, you just read that about Christoph, but seriously Johannes is an even bigger foodie than Christoph. He is also a brilliant pianist. He has said that you don’t have to start off as an expert piano player, but you should strive to improve your playing every day. He applies that same principle to Meisterplan. He doesn’t think that our method and tool should be perfect from day one, but we should do our best, listen to our customers and make improvements every day.
Johannes really cares about our customers. If someone from the Meisterplan team has recently talked to a customer, Johannes wants to hear about it. He takes time out of his busy schedule to hear what the customer had to say, addressing any concerns, connecting them with the right Meisterplanner or even calling them back himself.
Johannes loves building a solution that really helps solve customers’ problems, and the best reward is the smiles on their faces when their plans really work. As you read in the Meisterplan story, Johannes has nearly 20 years’ experience in CRM and PPM software as one of the founders and owners of itdesign GmbH, and CEO at Meisterplan.
Meisterplan Fun Facts
Locations
Bellevue, Washington
Houston, Texas
Toronto, Canada
Tuebingen, Germany
Founded
2013
Customers
Over 300
Employees
180