The most important delivery tool I built was a spreadsheet

Not an AI system. Not a project management platform. Not a custom-built operations tool.

A spreadsheet.

Specifically: a "sign-off checklist" that every page on every website launch has to clear before it goes live. QA status, design sign-off, copy sign-off, SEO checks, forms testing, CRM integration, pre-launch risk flag.

It sounds almost insultingly simple. It's stopped more problems than anything else I've implemented.

There's a reason surgeons use checklists. Not because they're forgetful — but because human attention under pressure is finite, and failure is expensive. The checklist isn't a judgement on competence. It's an acknowledgement that expertise alone doesn't prevent misses when you're coordinating twenty things at once.

The version that doesn't work: 200 rows, ten owners, requires a meeting to update. Nobody reads it. Nobody trusts it.

The version that works: fits on one screen, one clear owner per column, explicit 'blocked' state, gets a retrospective after each launch so it improves.

The point isn't the format. The point is that when ten people look at the same list and agree on what 'done' means, there are fewer surprises the day before go-live. The checklist creates shared understanding. The shared understanding is what stops the launch from breaking.

If you're running a launch –any launch– and you don't have a single source of truth that everyone is looking at, that's the thing to fix first.

Everything else follows from that.