Working with a principal investigator in the last month of a reporting window
The last month is for checking definitions, not for discovering that site C used a different enrolment rule.
A draughtsperson cannot recover a reporting month that the team spent arguing about whether a ‘participant’ includes people who only booked an appointment. That argument belongs in an outcome mapping session, weeks earlier. In the last month, the PI’s job is to freeze definitions and answer factual queries within two working days.
Send one workbook, not five versions with overlapping sheet names. Name the tabs after work packages. Put the data dictionary on the first sheet. If a column changed meaning in year two, say it there, not in an email thread the associate will never be shown.
Protect a short daily window for comments. ‘Please look when you can’ means the figure list slips. We time packs to an agreed comment day. Comments that arrive after the second revision round become a paid extra or they wait for the next report.
If the PI is travelling, name a deputy who can confirm numbers. Service Trailline will not guess a total because the only person who understands the extract is on fieldwork.
When the pack is done, keep the source table with the PDF. The next reporting cycle will begin with an argument about last year’s denominator. The table ends that argument in minutes.