Managing Hundreds of Titles

Hello, all:

My team and I currently manage hundreds of lesson titles, many of which are re-assigned annually. In addition, we generally have 10-15 lessons in active development at any time. As you are well aware, all of them go through discrete phases on their way from Request Received through final sign off and delivery.

 We need a better way to track progress so that we can see at a glance see where a specific lesson is in the development process. 

We’ve tried OneNote and Excel, but both have drawbacks. Using MS Project seems like overkill. 

Question: What methods and/or software are you using to keep track of your lessons? 

Thanks in advance!

Trace