9 ms·

Good checklist design is not trivial, however. I use checklists professionally, and the list rapidly accumulates cruft for problems that have been solved by des

by ip26 8y ago

Good checklist design is not trivial, however. I use checklists professionally, and the list rapidly accumulates cruft for problems that have been solved by design. E.g., suppose one time someone forgot to sign your software release. "Verify release has been signed" is added to the checklist. However a bright soul also integrates signing into the release build. Thus the problem is essentially solved once and for all, but the item will remain on the checklist in perpetuity, which adds overhead & decreases confidence in the checklist process. I think they make sense for infrequently exercised routines of moderate complexity that are 100% execution. A complex but limited scope machine like a plane is really an ideal example. I guess preparing for a vacation could be another, although I get caught up because packing is totally different every time. I suppose I checklist myself when I rappel or go skiing ("Skins, skis, boots, ... working up the body")

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hinkley 8y ago
Curating a list isn't about building it as much as it is about maintaining it.
sjg007 8y ago
I would argue that you want an automated check for "verify release has been signed" then if it fails you are alerted. This is better than manually checking it every time or assuming it will always be signed. A trust but verify approach. Then one day you may find that a trusted cert has expired and signing is broken or a key is not available b/c it got accidentally deleted etc... Lots of things can go and will go wrong.
KineticLensman 8y ago
> I think they make sense for infrequently exercised routines of moderate complexity that are 100% execution Yes. There have been several formal studies of this effect, e.g. [0]. Checklists offset skill fade, which is in effect the 'forgetting curve'. Some skills (the classic riding a bike) last for ages, others (a good example being field fault diagnosis) are lost very quickly even with good initial training. Incidentally, I once made a good camping packing checklist by making an inventory of the contents of my car as I unpacked it at the end of a holiday and the things I'd forgotten were still fresh in my mind. [0] https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/about/skills-fade-literature-review-full-report.pdf https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/about/skills-fade-literature-...
akulbe 8y ago
Create a checklist to review your other checklists on a schedule?
Toury2d 8y ago
Then remove it from the check list? They're not immutable.
delinka 8y ago
>"Verify release has been signed" is added to the checklist. However a bright soul also integrates signing into the release build. If that bright soul also added a 'verify the signature' step to the build process, and the ability for the build system to know that signing failed, you've automated the entire thing and now your checklist is documentation for the build process.
skohan 8y ago
> Good checklist design is not trivial, however. I understand you're saying, but this statement exemplifies so well something I think I have gotten worse at since becoming a software engineer. In my previous life, if I tried to apply checklists to my life, I would have taken a naive approach, applied my best effort, and that would be the end of it. Now I would be much more likely to consider edge cases and counter-examples, compare my checklists to the "optimal checklist", and as a result I might fall into a checklist-design rabbit hole, or else constantly question the efficacy of my checklists in knowledge of the true complexity of the problem. I don't think it's always beneficial to think in those terms.
cwyers 8y ago
I feel like some people have vastly different sensitivities to doing pointless things. There are some people who would see items like that on the checklist, and go, okay, it's a minute to check that, no big deal, I'll do it and get on with my life. There are people who look at it and are almost offended that their time is being wasted by process. I don't really know what to DO about this, but I do find it's one thing that makes collaborating difficult when a group has members with vastly different tendencies in this regard.
gbqwKHmfe06JJH 8y ago
Another situation in which it helps I think : cooking. At least for me a checklist (written or mental) helps keeping the kitchen clean a makes better meal. For a few years now I've started to plan my cooking like I plan more abstract algorithms.
- dboreham 8y ago
  Also: Mise en place
- petra 8y ago
  Recipes are checklists too.
cr0sh 8y ago
Maybe an item on the checklist to refactor the checklist (as needed)? Or maybe a checklist for refactoring all the checklists? /this could get out of hand...
- Jtsummers 8y ago
  You don't need that in the checklist. But what you do need is a periodic review of checklists and other procedure and process documents. Suppose you have training material for new hires ("How we use git 101"). Do you hand them the same document from 10 years ago? Does it have accurate setup instructions (now you use Bitbucket and not Gitlab or vice versa, and it presents internally on a different domain). All of these kinds of documents should be reviewed with some frequency (and ideally you should have a way to submit changes outside of the explicit review times, the explicit reviews are to catch things that weren't found earlier; wikis can help here). If you don't, then you do end up with the problem being discussed. You'll have a lot of checklists or procedures being done "because it says so" and not because they're needed.
  - hinkley 8y ago
    At some point you have to run through the process with enough disengaged brain cells that you can think about what you're doing while doing it. With processes that only get used in emergencies, this doesn't happen often enough. I suspect that's part of the secret behind Netflix Chaos Monkey. Every single process gets run multiple times a month, and it's normalized enough that it's not a constant panic mode thing.
ghaff 8y ago
I confess to not usually using a checklist when I travel because most times are a bit different. What I do though--I travel a lot--is I have a couple containers of "travel stuff" down in my kitchen including some pre-made kits that I just throw in my bag. I pick out what I need, add clothes as needed, and that works pretty well.
- meej 8y ago
  A good reusable checklist system can help with this. I've been using an app called SplashShopper since the Palm Pilot days that lets me choose what I need for any particular trip from a list of common items. This lets the list adapt to the particular needs of each trip. It's the only app I've ever found that hits this sweet spot of reusability. Unfortunately the company that makes it does a poor job of updating it for iOS, so I keep an ancient iPad around just so I can keep using it.
- jen729w 8y ago
  This is why I use OmniFocus for my travel checklist: nested lists. If I’m not going on a ‘work trip’ I can just tick that whole sub-list off with one tap. Checklists FTW. Nobody above me has mentioned Atul Gawande’s book ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ so, just on the off-chance you’re not aware of it, there you go. I loved it. (Gawande is the doctor who implemented the checklist in this article.)
- mason55 8y ago
  > I confess to not usually using a checklist when I travel because most times are a bit different. Don't you find that most trips have a ton of stuff in common though? Pajamas, contact case/solution, loofah, spare phone battery, ear plugs, phone charger & battery charger, reusable water bottle, etc. always go with me on every trip. IMO the stuff that always goes is the stuff that I tend to forget, exactly because there's nothing unique about this trip that would make me remember it. If I'm going to the beach I know I need my swimsuit and beach shirts because I can walk through my activities and think about what I need for each one. But I'm likely to forget pajamas because I'm not thinking about "go to bed every night" as an activity to plan for.
gowld 8y ago
> but the item will remain on the checklist in perpetuity, Why do you say this? Everytime you see a system flaw because of a missed step, you add to checklist. Everytime you have a process flaw because of a uselss step, you remove from the checklist. There's no problem here, checklist maintenance can be a step in the checklist. > ("Skins, skis, boots, . "Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch!"
- ip26 8y ago
  A release checklist (for us) is inherently very risk-averse, as its raison d'être is to prevent a very expensive & dire catastrophe, and every item on the list is (metaphorically) "written in blood" [0]. As a result it's politically intractable to remove anything. [0]: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/u-s-navy-supercarriers-dominate-because-of-lessons-paid-for-with-blood-cb26f5509ac https://medium.com/war-is-boring/u-s-navy-supercarriers-domi...
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    Agreed. But items can move to other checklists. In this case the list item should become a unit test for the signing code since a unit test is essentially a check list for automated systems.
  - grigjd3 8y ago
    Where do you work, so that I know to avoid it? Documentation needs updating as things change.
  - d1str0 8y ago
    So the issue isn’t with checklists, it’s with policy.
    - falsedan 8y ago
      policy is just a way to record a decision-making process. Yet he issue is that getting the right information to be reasonably sure it’s safe to remove a checklist item is hard and made harder the longer ago the item was added
mason55 8y ago
> I suppose I checklist myself when I rappel or go skiing ("Skins, skis, boots, ... working up the body") This is a perfect example. I have a snowboarding checklist and it's reduced the cognitive load of packing tremendously. Things to do the night before, stuff to wear for the drive, stuff to pack, what to include if I'm expecting extra cold weather, and a final checklist for things to do in the morning (e.g. get lunch out of the fridge). For travel I have a checklist of things that I always need to take (toiletries, spare phone battery, Nalgene, pajamas) and then the stuff that varies is all I have to think about. Almost every time I travel there's something on my list of "stuff that always gets packed" which I would have forgotten.
- hinkley 8y ago
  Hell, I do the same thing when traveling. I 'get dressed' in my head to check that I'm entirely clothed. If I weren't as good at visualizing things I'd probably just write it down. I never forget socks but I've had to buy a few toothbrushes and deodorant...
  - bluGill 8y ago
    I always have to remind my wife that there are stores along the way - she is the pack the kitchen sink type.
- thehappypm 8y ago
  I even take it a step further and I have a dedicated storage bin for all of my ski gear. When I get home, I religiously wash everything, then put it all 100% back in the bin. Next time I go skiing, I just grab everything out of the bin. Rinse and repeat.
  - tripzilch 8y ago
    Is religious washing like baptising?
rkagerer 8y ago
Sounds like you need to add "Periodically review & maintain checklist" to your checklist.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  And don't forget to make a Checklist review checklist so you don't mess up your checklist review.
  - dorgo 8y ago
    But add a counter to detect recursion and break..
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
TomK32 8y ago
I trust that someone in the near future will mess with the release build process and the signage will be dropped. Or there might be cases when the signature is suddenly invalid for reasons you cannot forsee yet. Keep the item on the list, especially if it checks the outcome of a longer process.

by ip26 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

hinkley 8y ago

Curating a list isn't about building it as much as it is about maintaining it.

sjg007 8y ago

I would argue that you want an automated check for "verify release has been signed" then if it fails you are alerted. This is better than manually checking it every time or assuming it will always be signed. A trust but verify approach. Then one day you may find that a trusted cert has expired and signing is broken or a key is not available b/c it got accidentally deleted etc... Lots of things can go and will go wrong.

KineticLensman 8y ago

> I think they make sense for infrequently exercised routines of moderate complexity that are 100% execution Yes. There have been several formal studies of this effect, e.g. [0]. Checklists offset skill fade, which is in effect the 'forgetting curve'. Some skills (the classic riding a bike) last for ages, others (a good example being field fault diagnosis) are lost very quickly even with good initial training. Incidentally, I once made a good camping packing checklist by making an inventory of the contents of my car as I unpacked it at the end of a holiday and the things I'd forgotten were still fresh in my mind. [0] https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/about/skills-fade-literature-review-full-report.pdf https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/about/skills-fade-literature-...

akulbe 8y ago

Create a checklist to review your other checklists on a schedule?

Toury2d 8y ago

Then remove it from the check list? They're not immutable.

delinka 8y ago

>"Verify release has been signed" is added to the checklist. However a bright soul also integrates signing into the release build. If that bright soul also added a 'verify the signature' step to the build process, and the ability for the build system to know that signing failed, you've automated the entire thing and now your checklist is documentation for the build process.

skohan 8y ago

> Good checklist design is not trivial, however. I understand you're saying, but this statement exemplifies so well something I think I have gotten worse at since becoming a software engineer. In my previous life, if I tried to apply checklists to my life, I would have taken a naive approach, applied my best effort, and that would be the end of it. Now I would be much more likely to consider edge cases and counter-examples, compare my checklists to the "optimal checklist", and as a result I might fall into a checklist-design rabbit hole, or else constantly question the efficacy of my checklists in knowledge of the true complexity of the problem. I don't think it's always beneficial to think in those terms.

cwyers 8y ago

I feel like some people have vastly different sensitivities to doing pointless things. There are some people who would see items like that on the checklist, and go, okay, it's a minute to check that, no big deal, I'll do it and get on with my life. There are people who look at it and are almost offended that their time is being wasted by process. I don't really know what to DO about this, but I do find it's one thing that makes collaborating difficult when a group has members with vastly different tendencies in this regard.

gbqwKHmfe06JJH 8y ago

Another situation in which it helps I think : cooking. At least for me a checklist (written or mental) helps keeping the kitchen clean a makes better meal. For a few years now I've started to plan my cooking like I plan more abstract algorithms.

dboreham 8y ago
Also: Mise en place
petra 8y ago
Recipes are checklists too.

cr0sh 8y ago

Maybe an item on the checklist to refactor the checklist (as needed)? Or maybe a checklist for refactoring all the checklists? /this could get out of hand...

Jtsummers 8y ago
You don't need that in the checklist. But what you do need is a periodic review of checklists and other procedure and process documents. Suppose you have training material for new hires ("How we use git 101"). Do you hand them the same document from 10 years ago? Does it have accurate setup instructions (now you use Bitbucket and not Gitlab or vice versa, and it presents internally on a different domain). All of these kinds of documents should be reviewed with some frequency (and ideally you should have a way to submit changes outside of the explicit review times, the explicit reviews are to catch things that weren't found earlier; wikis can help here). If you don't, then you do end up with the problem being discussed. You'll have a lot of checklists or procedures being done "because it says so" and not because they're needed.
- hinkley 8y ago
  At some point you have to run through the process with enough disengaged brain cells that you can think about what you're doing while doing it. With processes that only get used in emergencies, this doesn't happen often enough. I suspect that's part of the secret behind Netflix Chaos Monkey. Every single process gets run multiple times a month, and it's normalized enough that it's not a constant panic mode thing.

ghaff 8y ago

I confess to not usually using a checklist when I travel because most times are a bit different. What I do though--I travel a lot--is I have a couple containers of "travel stuff" down in my kitchen including some pre-made kits that I just throw in my bag. I pick out what I need, add clothes as needed, and that works pretty well.

meej 8y ago
A good reusable checklist system can help with this. I've been using an app called SplashShopper since the Palm Pilot days that lets me choose what I need for any particular trip from a list of common items. This lets the list adapt to the particular needs of each trip. It's the only app I've ever found that hits this sweet spot of reusability. Unfortunately the company that makes it does a poor job of updating it for iOS, so I keep an ancient iPad around just so I can keep using it.
jen729w 8y ago
This is why I use OmniFocus for my travel checklist: nested lists. If I’m not going on a ‘work trip’ I can just tick that whole sub-list off with one tap. Checklists FTW. Nobody above me has mentioned Atul Gawande’s book ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ so, just on the off-chance you’re not aware of it, there you go. I loved it. (Gawande is the doctor who implemented the checklist in this article.)
mason55 8y ago
> I confess to not usually using a checklist when I travel because most times are a bit different. Don't you find that most trips have a ton of stuff in common though? Pajamas, contact case/solution, loofah, spare phone battery, ear plugs, phone charger & battery charger, reusable water bottle, etc. always go with me on every trip. IMO the stuff that always goes is the stuff that I tend to forget, exactly because there's nothing unique about this trip that would make me remember it. If I'm going to the beach I know I need my swimsuit and beach shirts because I can walk through my activities and think about what I need for each one. But I'm likely to forget pajamas because I'm not thinking about "go to bed every night" as an activity to plan for.

gowld 8y ago

> but the item will remain on the checklist in perpetuity, Why do you say this? Everytime you see a system flaw because of a missed step, you add to checklist. Everytime you have a process flaw because of a uselss step, you remove from the checklist. There's no problem here, checklist maintenance can be a step in the checklist. > ("Skins, skis, boots, . "Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch!"

ip26 8y ago
A release checklist (for us) is inherently very risk-averse, as its raison d'être is to prevent a very expensive & dire catastrophe, and every item on the list is (metaphorically) "written in blood" [0]. As a result it's politically intractable to remove anything. [0]: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/u-s-navy-supercarriers-dominate-because-of-lessons-paid-for-with-blood-cb26f5509ac https://medium.com/war-is-boring/u-s-navy-supercarriers-domi...
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  Agreed. But items can move to other checklists. In this case the list item should become a unit test for the signing code since a unit test is essentially a check list for automated systems.
- grigjd3 8y ago
  Where do you work, so that I know to avoid it? Documentation needs updating as things change.
- d1str0 8y ago
  So the issue isn’t with checklists, it’s with policy.
  - falsedan 8y ago
    policy is just a way to record a decision-making process. Yet he issue is that getting the right information to be reasonably sure it’s safe to remove a checklist item is hard and made harder the longer ago the item was added

mason55 8y ago

> I suppose I checklist myself when I rappel or go skiing ("Skins, skis, boots, ... working up the body") This is a perfect example. I have a snowboarding checklist and it's reduced the cognitive load of packing tremendously. Things to do the night before, stuff to wear for the drive, stuff to pack, what to include if I'm expecting extra cold weather, and a final checklist for things to do in the morning (e.g. get lunch out of the fridge). For travel I have a checklist of things that I always need to take (toiletries, spare phone battery, Nalgene, pajamas) and then the stuff that varies is all I have to think about. Almost every time I travel there's something on my list of "stuff that always gets packed" which I would have forgotten.

hinkley 8y ago
Hell, I do the same thing when traveling. I 'get dressed' in my head to check that I'm entirely clothed. If I weren't as good at visualizing things I'd probably just write it down. I never forget socks but I've had to buy a few toothbrushes and deodorant...
- bluGill 8y ago
  I always have to remind my wife that there are stores along the way - she is the pack the kitchen sink type.
thehappypm 8y ago
I even take it a step further and I have a dedicated storage bin for all of my ski gear. When I get home, I religiously wash everything, then put it all 100% back in the bin. Next time I go skiing, I just grab everything out of the bin. Rinse and repeat.
- tripzilch 8y ago
  Is religious washing like baptising?

rkagerer 8y ago

Sounds like you need to add "Periodically review & maintain checklist" to your checklist.

rtkwe 8y ago
And don't forget to make a Checklist review checklist so you don't mess up your checklist review.
- dorgo 8y ago
  But add a counter to detect recursion and break..
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

TomK32 8y ago

I trust that someone in the near future will mess with the release build process and the signage will be dropped. Or there might be cases when the signature is suddenly invalid for reasons you cannot forsee yet. Keep the item on the list, especially if it checks the outcome of a longer process.