The Spreadsheet Isn't the Problem
Why sponsored programs teams still manage million-dollar portfolios in spreadsheets — and why the spreadsheet itself isn't what needs to change.
It is tempting to treat the spreadsheet as the villain. It is not. The spreadsheet is the most honest artifact in the office: it is a precise record of the questions the official system could not answer.
Spreadsheets are rational
A grants administrator managing fifty awards builds a tracker because it is the fastest correct tool available. It models exactly the portfolio in front of them, it changes the same day the need changes, and it requires no ticket, no implementation partner, and no fiscal-year budget request.
Telling that person to stop using spreadsheets without replacing the capability just makes the office slower.
What actually needs to change
The problem is not the file format. It is that the logic — burn rate assumptions, salary cap handling, F&A base treatment, effort commitments — lives in one person's private copy instead of in shared infrastructure.
Move the logic into a system that every role can see, and the spreadsheet stops being load-bearing. It can go back to being what it should be: a scratch pad, not the source of truth.
Written by Stowers Scalable Strategies and Analysis, LLC.