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Unfortunately, there's a lot of resistance to using checklists, from the nurses to doctors. I wish they'd just swallow their pride and worry more about how to i

Unfortunately, there's a lot of resistance to using checklists, from the nurses to doctors. I wish they'd just swallow their pride and worry more about how to improve than how it makes them look when their mistakes become visible and explicit to the people around them.

ColinWright 8y ago
This is something of a case of "Physician - heal thyself". I've advocated the use of checklists in software for decades. I wrote something 5 years ago and posted it here[0][1]. The discussion was enlightening. Read the discussions, keeping in mind the comments here about the resistance encountered by people in the field. Many of the points in the discussions are useful and can be used to create and adapt checklists, but no, they are being used to dismiss them out of hand. Checklists? We don't need to stinkin' checklists. I've given up and just use them in my companies. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7655018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7655018 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18522627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18522627
- lugg 8y ago
  Reminds me of the old you are not done yet list. Couldn't track the one I'm thinking of down but found this: http://www.thebraidytester.com/downloads/YouAreNotDoneYet.pdf http://www.thebraidytester.com/downloads/YouAreNotDoneYet.pd... I feel like I could use a checklist or two.
- Tade0 8y ago
  Only one company I worked with to date really used checklists and I firmly believe it was one of the reasons they were able to maintain 150k LOC of legacy JavaScript in a single project. One of the others was testing furiously.
bumby 8y ago
I wonder how much of this is due to the self-selection of the profession in terms of personalities. Surgery in particular is known to attract Type-A personalities. I witnessed similar attitudes in healthcare and other high-status positions where hubris makes them think they know better...until they have an accident. And even then, there's a strong urge to rationalize the outcome as unavoidable
amitport 8y ago
Visible mistakes generate lawsuits. There used to be more processes, removing them was generally a legal necessity.
- jplayer01 8y ago
  It's not just about lawsuits. I've seen cases (hospitals) where checklists drew pushback from doctors because they didn't like being questioned by nurses who noticed them making mistakes. It impinged on their egos. Implementing checklists requires a certain amount of humility that just isn't there in many cases.

ColinWright 8y ago

This is something of a case of "Physician - heal thyself". I've advocated the use of checklists in software for decades. I wrote something 5 years ago and posted it here[0][1]. The discussion was enlightening. Read the discussions, keeping in mind the comments here about the resistance encountered by people in the field. Many of the points in the discussions are useful and can be used to create and adapt checklists, but no, they are being used to dismiss them out of hand. Checklists? We don't need to stinkin' checklists. I've given up and just use them in my companies. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7655018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7655018 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18522627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18522627

lugg 8y ago
Reminds me of the old you are not done yet list. Couldn't track the one I'm thinking of down but found this: http://www.thebraidytester.com/downloads/YouAreNotDoneYet.pdf http://www.thebraidytester.com/downloads/YouAreNotDoneYet.pd... I feel like I could use a checklist or two.
Tade0 8y ago
Only one company I worked with to date really used checklists and I firmly believe it was one of the reasons they were able to maintain 150k LOC of legacy JavaScript in a single project. One of the others was testing furiously.

bumby 8y ago

I wonder how much of this is due to the self-selection of the profession in terms of personalities. Surgery in particular is known to attract Type-A personalities. I witnessed similar attitudes in healthcare and other high-status positions where hubris makes them think they know better...until they have an accident. And even then, there's a strong urge to rationalize the outcome as unavoidable

amitport 8y ago

Visible mistakes generate lawsuits. There used to be more processes, removing them was generally a legal necessity.

jplayer01 8y ago
It's not just about lawsuits. I've seen cases (hospitals) where checklists drew pushback from doctors because they didn't like being questioned by nurses who noticed them making mistakes. It impinged on their egos. Implementing checklists requires a certain amount of humility that just isn't there in many cases.