I hope you're right, but I'm suspicious. For the ones I know well there, they worked because the didn't need permission from the powerful Git, Slack, and Docker were definitely like that in the early days. But planning systems are chosen by the powerful and cater to their needs first.

There are plenty of minimal planning tools out there. Github issues, for example. Or I use KanbanFlow quite a bit. But having driven adoption of simple tools, I think you at least need an environment of benign neglect, as with a skunkworks project, or a tech project at a non-tech company. From what I've seen, in a lot of companies systems like Jira are too entrenched and too visible to management to allow for guerilla-style adoption of something that's more developer/worker friendly.