Status: Architected, deployed, and ultimately shelved due to lack of stakeholder adoption

Over the course of several weeks, I partnered with a Smartsheet technical specialist to architect a multi-sheet system designed to unify fragmented planning data across departments and business units. The goal was to create a centralized, dynamically updating master sheet that would feed into Smartsheet’s Calendar App—offering board members and leadership a clean, visual overview of all College events in one place.

This system involved:

• Modular sheet design across independently managed stakeholder grids

• Automated data feeds into a master sheet for real-time visibility

• Calendar App overlay to translate backend logic into a digestible planning interface

Despite the technical success, the project stalled due to a lack of stakeholder buy-in. Departments were assigned simple intake sheets, but few engaged with them—despite their ease of use. To solve this, I proposed leveraging Smartsheet’s Data View app, which would have allowed stakeholders to submit event data via a clean, form-like interface (essentially a front-end API feeding the master sheet). The College declined to invest in the add-on.

The deeper issue was cultural: most staff were reluctant to engage with new tech unless absolutely required, and Smartsheet itself had little traction internally. Without enforcement or executive sponsorship, the system couldn’t gain traction—despite its potential to radically improve planning transparency.

Rough Demo*

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This wasn’t just a calendar cleanup. It was a diagnostic intervention in a brittle system that had calcified around legacy logic and stakeholder avoidance. By mapping the actual rhythms, constraints, and dependencies of the team’s work, I exposed the cost of performative compliance and rebuilt a structure that could be metabolized. The final system wasn’t flashy, but it was metabolically sound, semantically honest, and strategically aligned with the team’s real needs. That’s the work.