This is not a failure of spreadsheets. It is a failure of system design. The spreadsheet failed because it was built as a document rather than as an operational system -- because nobody defined who updates it, when it gets updated, what each status means, or what happens when the data is wrong. A tracking system is not the tool you use. It is the tool plus the rules that govern its use plus the discipline to maintain it under the sustained pressure of daily operations.

This lesson teaches you to build a tracking system that works at scale -- one that serves as the operational backbone of your submission pipeline and remains reliable even when you are managing 20 concurrent studies through multiple IRBs with a team of coordinators who each have their own way of doing things.

This is not a failure of spreadsheets. It is a failure of system design. The spreadsheet failed because it was built as a document rather than as an operational system -- because nobody defined who updates it, when it gets updated, what each status means, or what happens when the data is wrong. A tracking system is not the tool you use. It is the tool plus the rules that govern its use plus the discipline to maintain it under the sustained pressure of daily operations.

This lesson teaches you to build a tracking system that works at scale -- one that serves as the operational backbone of your submission pipeline and remains reliable even when you are managing 20 concurrent studies through multiple IRBs with a team of coordinators who each have their own way of doing things.