Large project execution?

I have been running into massive issues with large project execution. I have solid PRDs, tech specs, implementation plans, etc. Everything is decomposed/sharded into atomic tickets in github...and yet the projects all go sideways and then just seem to be on constant side quests.

I'm missing something obviously, people seem to be able to build full apps and yet I'm constantly finding that every ticket I work on creates two more and the project then needs to rewrite some other piece and we're going the wrong direction fast. I can have codex or claude run for hours and hours, only to find they haven't made headway closing a single ticket due to this issue.

I must be failing at something basic. Unless I use the terminal and prompt one small idea at a time, things seem to fall apart and I constantly need to have the coding agent 'regroup' and revise the plan. That's when it's clear things went way off the rails and what it said it was doing and what the tickets directed it to do versus what it actually did were night and day. So i would have to unravel bunch of commits, etc. It's a mess.

Anyone have a direction they can point me for controlling these kinds of full projects? I've got my orchestration working (mostly) accurately to handle a ticket or two for bugfixes and feature adds on existing solutions, but greenfield stuff is painfully failing.

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