20 ms·

The Simple Genius of Checklists

323 points by zzaner 7y ago

gargod 7y ago
Reminds me of Chernobyl, where some steps within the safety system test checklist had been crossed-out for an unexplained reason and they had to essentially guess what to do. Not that a properly maintained checklist would have necessarily prevented it.
- zzaner 7y ago
  I actually don't know if that detail is true or if it was added for dramatic effect in the HBO series. The official record seems to state that they simply didn't follow the approved procedures for the test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
  - mjevans 7y ago
    There are all sorts of ways they messed up with that test, the design of the system in general, etc. A lot was learned, some of it costly stuff that we as a species really didn't need to pay for again, and some things that were new and valuable as a result of failure that ethnically could never be intentionally replicated. One of the better lessons might be to avoid deviating from pre-planned test procedures, and for every major step to have an 'abort' path (or two) for safely entering either safety or normal operating procedures.
euler_angles 7y ago
I have been a flight test and rocket test engineer. Checklists were life, especially in the rocket world. The fantastic thing about checklists is that they both keep you accountable and free your mental resources so that when something happens that one of your checklists don't cover, you know you've at least tried all the sane/expected things. I personally found that backstop freeing and allowed me to use my creativity when it was demanded by things going wrong.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  It took three generations of flight training for checklists to become an essential part of aviation. Note that a flight-training generation is less than a human reproductive generation; it's the time from first lesson taken to first lesson taught (plus some). It had to wait for the older instructors to retire. We are still in transition, in medicine. Many physicians have not yet cottoned to hand-washing, yet.
  - supahfly_remix 7y ago
    > Many physicians have not yet cottoned to hand-washing, yet. What?!? How many generations has it been since Louis Pasteur?
    - DocTomoe 7y ago
      Actually, Ignaz Semmelweis. And about 150 years, so 4-5 generations of surgeons. Not exactly many.
      - ncmncm 7y ago
        Surgical generations, like pilot generations, are quite a lot shorter than reproductive generations.
    - RyJones 7y ago
      I have bad news for you. I have been seeing a lot of doctors for the last five years or so. Two or three are absolutely fastidious about hand washing. The rest are not.
  - euler_angles 7y ago
    Maybe -- and this is just my own opinion/speculation -- this is because in my lines of work, the results of failing to follow a checklist can be at worst catastrophic and relatively immediate. In medicine, some classes of failures might be more subtle and harder to notice. Anyone with medical knowledge, feel free to inform me if that idea is totally off-base.
rkangel 7y ago
I cannot recommend this book enough. It is a great read due to good writing and interesting case studies, and the underlying message is immensely valuable.
- blunte 7y ago
  Would it help me identify when checklists would be effective, and then how to build a useful checklist? Or is it more about why checklists are good?
  - rkangel 7y ago
    Both are covered. It specifically talks about two categories of problems, for which checklists are and aren't useful. Different sorts of checklists and what should and shouldn't be on there is also covered.
randomdent 7y ago
While I agree with the overall message, Boeing would not be my first choice for best practices on safety
- randomdent 7y ago
  Especially after reading this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20290449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20290449
vmurthy 7y ago
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are big fans of checklists,too.[1] Obviously, in a field like investing no checklist is perfect but at-least it'll help you avoid common pitfalls. Source: Many of their shareholder's letters contain references to their approach. I found another one online. [1]https://hurricanecapital.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-buffettmunger-investment-checklist/ https://hurricanecapital.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-buffet...
thomasfedb 7y ago
Surgical Safety Checklists are crucial for preventing what used to be a really shocking number of wrong-patient and wrong-side procedural errors. Taking the good kidney out instead of the diseased one is practically murder. https://www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/checklist/en/ https://www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/checklist/en/
- hi41 7y ago
  That is a really nice check list. I think it is color coded as well to present information clearly.
rb808 7y ago
I hate checklists. I've just done an information security checklist at work, 200 questions, lots of them irrelevant, many are very vague, often require evidence that is time consuming to put together. Next week I have a release that I have to put a change ticket in for - another 50 boxes with questions and combos. I'm ready to quit. Don't let checklists turn your company into a bureaucratic hell hole.
- decoyworker 7y ago
  Defense?
- nobrains 7y ago
  That sounds like a bad checklist. Some improvements that can be done: 1. Divide the checklist into "required", "lower priority" and "optional" sections. Will help in just focusing on "required" for time critical implementations, and tackle the rest later if needed. 2. Eliminate requiring evidence and start trusting. If trust is broken (found via audit) then take action. Don't penalize everyone for the mistakes of a few. 3. Add examples for vague cases. Having pre-polulated dropdowns are better than open ended questions. Just add a comments column / field if needed. 4. 200 questions? Seems like overkill. And if all are necessary, then make sure management knows the time that it will take to fill, verify, rectify and submit that sheet.
- epalm 7y ago
  So what you actually hate are "bad checklists".
  - ukj 7y ago
    Do you have a good checklist for writing good checklists?
    - mschnell 7y ago
      The Gawande book (Checklist Manifesto) contains one. A few points from my notes: - distinguish Read-Do- - Pause-Points - Read-Do vs. Do-Confirm - 5--9 items - Only killer items - No clutter and unnecessary colors - Wording simple and exact - Use language of the profession - Fit on one page - Has to be tested in the real world - Also don’t forget Communication checks
efa 7y ago
I really enjoyed http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/ http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/. Very interesting and at times frustrating. You ask yourself why more hospitals can't implement success described in this book.
- subhro 7y ago
  Very good book. This book came to my mind the moment I saw this post.
  - digikazi 7y ago
    Atul Gawande is brilliant! He also gave a series of wonderful lectures for the BBC in 2014. They're still avaliable online if interested. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player?page=1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player?pa... EDIT: I pressed "update" with my sausage fingers before I wrote anything coherent.
- mgnn 7y ago
  I'm about 2/3 into the book, the idea is convincing, but did he put any example checklist in the book? He referred to many extant checklists, but there is no "Figure 1: a bad checklist" and "Figure 2: a good checklist, improvement for the one in Figure 1".
  - ex3xu 7y ago
    They are at the end, in appendix format. The final checklist is a checklist for checklists: http://www.projectcheck.org/uploads/1/0/9/0/1090835/checklist_for_checklists_final_10.3.pdf http://www.projectcheck.org/uploads/1/0/9/0/1090835/checklis...
    - mgnn 7y ago
      That's strange, my edition doesn't have appendices. Thanks for the page though.
RedNifre 7y ago
Can anybody recommend a good checklist app for Android? When I search for "checklist" I only find ToDo-List apps that call themselves "checklist" app. What I'd like is something where you can set a per-checklist timeout after which the list resets everything to unchecked and maybe allow two different ways to view each checklist (or modes): 1. All at once with little check marks that you can check in any order 2. Strictly ordered checklists where you only see the current task and check it to get to the next, ideally with a "3/14" indicator or progress bar to know how far you've got through the checklist. Which apps can you recommend?
- astrobe_ 7y ago
  YAGNI. Just use whatever Notepad-like app that was pre-installed on your device.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  This sounds like a fun afternoon project for a web or mobile dev. If nobody replies with a quality app that does this, I'm going to make it for myself and share it here.
  - OedipusRex 7y ago
    This is my weekend project this week, ha. I'm reading Checklist Manifesto and decided there wasn't any good app for it. I'll post back here when it's done.
    - Waterluvian 7y ago
      Cool! I was going to do the same. Reach out to me if you want help, code review, or a tester.
    - newhotelowner 7y ago
      Love to try it out.
    - justnotworthit 7y ago
      Advice (or warning?): I use Checklist Wrangler for iOS. Checklist templates that repeat based on day of week; auto-archive after X days. Tools for organization into groups, subgroups, etc. A way to view completion over time. I use it for daily things (daily autocreate, daily autoarchive), weekly things, monthly things, and things I do in order but without a set time (manual creation and... autocreation after completion? no i dont think that's a feature). Wonderful app for implementing checklists and it's a cornerstone is my toolbox for making sure I'm living my life with intension. Yet, it's long abandoned and I dont know if it's still for sale in the app store. Probably made little money in a sea of Todo apps.
rmbryan 7y ago
I've invested enough time in a personal checklist for a daily process to get to the point where I feel like the checklist is "helpful", "minimal" and "complete". If I had a printer, I would print out a stack of them and record my compliance on paper. I don't have a printer, and I'm not buying one just for this. What's the electronic equivalent for recording checklist compliance?
blunte 7y ago
But where does one begin to identify the parts of life where a checklist would reduce cognitive load? In IT, some cases are obvious (such as deploying new releases). However, if a process is so repeatable that you could have an accurate checklist, then you could probably automate the process and eliminate the need for the checklist. I would love to know what parts of my life I could relegate to checklists so I could free my mind to focus on just the things that I excel at...
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  In critical situations where the a bad outcome is really, really negative, checklists are fine. I've seen checklists abused, however, in project management. Where some folks are apt to generate a "one-size-fits-all" checklist for every project large or small. It ends up becoming boilerplate, and worse, people take their tasks less seriously if trivial, nebulous or non-applicable stuff is grouped onto the same footing as things which take hard work. Everything ends up being a checklist item with check-box and a date on it.
- mav3rick 7y ago
  Ironically for packing before travel.
- cco 7y ago
  Packing for a vacation or camping trip is a very good candidate. If you live in a winter climate you can create a good winterizing checklist. Weekly home upkeep is another.
  - deepspace 7y ago
    Yes! I used to forget something every time I traveled. After reading Gawande's book in 2010 I started making a checklist. It took about five trips to converge on a stable list and these days travel is a breeze. Print out checklist. Do stuff on checklist, in sequence. Enjoy stress-free travel.
  - Too 7y ago
    Packing for anything is perfect candidate for checklists. I even made one for going to the gym which which is something i do regularly but still very often manage to forget some mundane thing like shampoo, padlock, member card, socks, water bottle.
jowdones 7y ago
I'm probably the smartest guy in Romania and can tell you I got my certification that I can do 99% by making sure my usual cognitive load stays at 1%. I was also poor, which means there was no way to enforce my internal policy which means today, 20 years later, I'm using 99% of my brain power to solve issues a simple state/high-powered enforcement checklist would do. At my 90%+ I still dreamed of a better future. Now I only wish my own death. Tomorrow I hope and make sure you all die.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- catacombs 7y ago
  > I'm probably the smartest guy in Romania [citation needed]
takanori 7y ago
Has there ever been a platform for experts to build and share checklists and for every/any task?
- zzaner 7y ago
  Not that I know of but I came across this curated compilation of checklists: https://github.com/huyingjie/Checklist-Checklist https://github.com/huyingjie/Checklist-Checklist
  - takanori 7y ago
    Any arguments why this would or wouldn’t work?
aeturnum 7y ago
Also worth mentioning the power of engaging our bodies physically and verbally to ensure we're engaging with checklists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
runjake 7y ago
Checklists were life in the USAF working on heavy bombers and the nuclear PRP program. I’ve done a procedure 100 or a 1000 times? Still going down the checklist in the Tech Manual every single time. Humans can’t multitask well and if you miss a step, people can die and planes could crash.
wiscoDude 7y ago
After my partner read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, he set out to help other organizations improve outcomes via the use of checklists. Together, we built https://www.manifest.ly https://www.manifest.ly My main feedback from having witnessed thousands of organizations set up their checklists is that they can be used to help teams succeed and they can be used in an oppressive way to "ensure people do what they're supposed to do". Almost always they contain too many steps compared to what they should have and that is usually because the people creating/editing the checklists are often not the users of the actual checklist. When the users and editors are the same people, then the quality of the checklist goes up. We use our own tool on a daily bases for processes that have high risks or for processes that we don't do very often. They are great safety nets.
qwerty456127 7y ago
People share some IT-related checklists on GitHub already. It would be cool to see more checklists on non-IT subjects.
hellosputnik 7y ago
The article reminds me of Brendan Gregg's talk, "Performance Checklists for SREs". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxCWXNigDpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxCWXNigDpA
JBlue42 7y ago
Tom Limoncelli had a nice article about how documentation/checklists is the beginning of automation in an IT setting. Manual Work Is A Bug: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3197520 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3197520 Makes a lot of sense and something I advocate for in my department.
unethical_ban 7y ago
What is the name of the font on that B-17 checklist? It is that mid-century engineering font that I love so much.

323 points by zzaner 7y ago

Reminds me of Chernobyl, where some steps within the safety system test checklist had been crossed-out for an unexplained reason and they had to essentially guess what to do. Not that a properly maintained checklist would have necessarily prevented it.

zzaner 7y ago
I actually don't know if that detail is true or if it was added for dramatic effect in the HBO series. The official record seems to state that they simply didn't follow the approved procedures for the test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
- mjevans 7y ago
  There are all sorts of ways they messed up with that test, the design of the system in general, etc. A lot was learned, some of it costly stuff that we as a species really didn't need to pay for again, and some things that were new and valuable as a result of failure that ethnically could never be intentionally replicated. One of the better lessons might be to avoid deviating from pre-planned test procedures, and for every major step to have an 'abort' path (or two) for safely entering either safety or normal operating procedures.

euler_angles 7y ago

I have been a flight test and rocket test engineer. Checklists were life, especially in the rocket world. The fantastic thing about checklists is that they both keep you accountable and free your mental resources so that when something happens that one of your checklists don't cover, you know you've at least tried all the sane/expected things. I personally found that backstop freeing and allowed me to use my creativity when it was demanded by things going wrong.

ncmncm 7y ago
It took three generations of flight training for checklists to become an essential part of aviation. Note that a flight-training generation is less than a human reproductive generation; it's the time from first lesson taken to first lesson taught (plus some). It had to wait for the older instructors to retire. We are still in transition, in medicine. Many physicians have not yet cottoned to hand-washing, yet.
- supahfly_remix 7y ago
  > Many physicians have not yet cottoned to hand-washing, yet. What?!? How many generations has it been since Louis Pasteur?
  - DocTomoe 7y ago
    Actually, Ignaz Semmelweis. And about 150 years, so 4-5 generations of surgeons. Not exactly many.
    - ncmncm 7y ago
      Surgical generations, like pilot generations, are quite a lot shorter than reproductive generations.
  - RyJones 7y ago
    I have bad news for you. I have been seeing a lot of doctors for the last five years or so. Two or three are absolutely fastidious about hand washing. The rest are not.
- euler_angles 7y ago
  Maybe -- and this is just my own opinion/speculation -- this is because in my lines of work, the results of failing to follow a checklist can be at worst catastrophic and relatively immediate. In medicine, some classes of failures might be more subtle and harder to notice. Anyone with medical knowledge, feel free to inform me if that idea is totally off-base.

rkangel 7y ago

I cannot recommend this book enough. It is a great read due to good writing and interesting case studies, and the underlying message is immensely valuable.

blunte 7y ago
Would it help me identify when checklists would be effective, and then how to build a useful checklist? Or is it more about why checklists are good?
- rkangel 7y ago
  Both are covered. It specifically talks about two categories of problems, for which checklists are and aren't useful. Different sorts of checklists and what should and shouldn't be on there is also covered.

randomdent 7y ago

While I agree with the overall message, Boeing would not be my first choice for best practices on safety

randomdent 7y ago
Especially after reading this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20290449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20290449

vmurthy 7y ago

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are big fans of checklists,too.[1] Obviously, in a field like investing no checklist is perfect but at-least it'll help you avoid common pitfalls. Source: Many of their shareholder's letters contain references to their approach. I found another one online. [1]https://hurricanecapital.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-buffettmunger-investment-checklist/ https://hurricanecapital.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/the-buffet...

thomasfedb 7y ago

Surgical Safety Checklists are crucial for preventing what used to be a really shocking number of wrong-patient and wrong-side procedural errors. Taking the good kidney out instead of the diseased one is practically murder. https://www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/checklist/en/ https://www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/checklist/en/

hi41 7y ago
That is a really nice check list. I think it is color coded as well to present information clearly.

rb808 7y ago

I hate checklists. I've just done an information security checklist at work, 200 questions, lots of them irrelevant, many are very vague, often require evidence that is time consuming to put together. Next week I have a release that I have to put a change ticket in for - another 50 boxes with questions and combos. I'm ready to quit. Don't let checklists turn your company into a bureaucratic hell hole.

decoyworker 7y ago
Defense?
nobrains 7y ago
That sounds like a bad checklist. Some improvements that can be done: 1. Divide the checklist into "required", "lower priority" and "optional" sections. Will help in just focusing on "required" for time critical implementations, and tackle the rest later if needed. 2. Eliminate requiring evidence and start trusting. If trust is broken (found via audit) then take action. Don't penalize everyone for the mistakes of a few. 3. Add examples for vague cases. Having pre-polulated dropdowns are better than open ended questions. Just add a comments column / field if needed. 4. 200 questions? Seems like overkill. And if all are necessary, then make sure management knows the time that it will take to fill, verify, rectify and submit that sheet.
epalm 7y ago
So what you actually hate are "bad checklists".
- ukj 7y ago
  Do you have a good checklist for writing good checklists?
  - mschnell 7y ago
    The Gawande book (Checklist Manifesto) contains one. A few points from my notes: - distinguish Read-Do- - Pause-Points - Read-Do vs. Do-Confirm - 5--9 items - Only killer items - No clutter and unnecessary colors - Wording simple and exact - Use language of the profession - Fit on one page - Has to be tested in the real world - Also don’t forget Communication checks

efa 7y ago

I really enjoyed http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/ http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/. Very interesting and at times frustrating. You ask yourself why more hospitals can't implement success described in this book.

subhro 7y ago
Very good book. This book came to my mind the moment I saw this post.
- digikazi 7y ago
  Atul Gawande is brilliant! He also gave a series of wonderful lectures for the BBC in 2014. They're still avaliable online if interested. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player?page=1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player?pa... EDIT: I pressed "update" with my sausage fingers before I wrote anything coherent.
mgnn 7y ago
I'm about 2/3 into the book, the idea is convincing, but did he put any example checklist in the book? He referred to many extant checklists, but there is no "Figure 1: a bad checklist" and "Figure 2: a good checklist, improvement for the one in Figure 1".
- ex3xu 7y ago
  They are at the end, in appendix format. The final checklist is a checklist for checklists: http://www.projectcheck.org/uploads/1/0/9/0/1090835/checklist_for_checklists_final_10.3.pdf http://www.projectcheck.org/uploads/1/0/9/0/1090835/checklis...
  - mgnn 7y ago
    That's strange, my edition doesn't have appendices. Thanks for the page though.

RedNifre 7y ago

Can anybody recommend a good checklist app for Android? When I search for "checklist" I only find ToDo-List apps that call themselves "checklist" app. What I'd like is something where you can set a per-checklist timeout after which the list resets everything to unchecked and maybe allow two different ways to view each checklist (or modes): 1. All at once with little check marks that you can check in any order 2. Strictly ordered checklists where you only see the current task and check it to get to the next, ideally with a "3/14" indicator or progress bar to know how far you've got through the checklist. Which apps can you recommend?

astrobe_ 7y ago
YAGNI. Just use whatever Notepad-like app that was pre-installed on your device.
Waterluvian 7y ago
This sounds like a fun afternoon project for a web or mobile dev. If nobody replies with a quality app that does this, I'm going to make it for myself and share it here.
- OedipusRex 7y ago
  This is my weekend project this week, ha. I'm reading Checklist Manifesto and decided there wasn't any good app for it. I'll post back here when it's done.
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    Cool! I was going to do the same. Reach out to me if you want help, code review, or a tester.
  - newhotelowner 7y ago
    Love to try it out.
  - justnotworthit 7y ago
    Advice (or warning?): I use Checklist Wrangler for iOS. Checklist templates that repeat based on day of week; auto-archive after X days. Tools for organization into groups, subgroups, etc. A way to view completion over time. I use it for daily things (daily autocreate, daily autoarchive), weekly things, monthly things, and things I do in order but without a set time (manual creation and... autocreation after completion? no i dont think that's a feature). Wonderful app for implementing checklists and it's a cornerstone is my toolbox for making sure I'm living my life with intension. Yet, it's long abandoned and I dont know if it's still for sale in the app store. Probably made little money in a sea of Todo apps.

rmbryan 7y ago

I've invested enough time in a personal checklist for a daily process to get to the point where I feel like the checklist is "helpful", "minimal" and "complete". If I had a printer, I would print out a stack of them and record my compliance on paper. I don't have a printer, and I'm not buying one just for this. What's the electronic equivalent for recording checklist compliance?

blunte 7y ago

But where does one begin to identify the parts of life where a checklist would reduce cognitive load? In IT, some cases are obvious (such as deploying new releases). However, if a process is so repeatable that you could have an accurate checklist, then you could probably automate the process and eliminate the need for the checklist. I would love to know what parts of my life I could relegate to checklists so I could free my mind to focus on just the things that I excel at...

crispyambulance 7y ago
In critical situations where the a bad outcome is really, really negative, checklists are fine. I've seen checklists abused, however, in project management. Where some folks are apt to generate a "one-size-fits-all" checklist for every project large or small. It ends up becoming boilerplate, and worse, people take their tasks less seriously if trivial, nebulous or non-applicable stuff is grouped onto the same footing as things which take hard work. Everything ends up being a checklist item with check-box and a date on it.
mav3rick 7y ago
Ironically for packing before travel.
cco 7y ago
Packing for a vacation or camping trip is a very good candidate. If you live in a winter climate you can create a good winterizing checklist. Weekly home upkeep is another.
- deepspace 7y ago
  Yes! I used to forget something every time I traveled. After reading Gawande's book in 2010 I started making a checklist. It took about five trips to converge on a stable list and these days travel is a breeze. Print out checklist. Do stuff on checklist, in sequence. Enjoy stress-free travel.
- Too 7y ago
  Packing for anything is perfect candidate for checklists. I even made one for going to the gym which which is something i do regularly but still very often manage to forget some mundane thing like shampoo, padlock, member card, socks, water bottle.

jowdones 7y ago

I'm probably the smartest guy in Romania and can tell you I got my certification that I can do 99% by making sure my usual cognitive load stays at 1%. I was also poor, which means there was no way to enforce my internal policy which means today, 20 years later, I'm using 99% of my brain power to solve issues a simple state/high-powered enforcement checklist would do. At my 90%+ I still dreamed of a better future. Now I only wish my own death. Tomorrow I hope and make sure you all die.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
catacombs 7y ago
> I'm probably the smartest guy in Romania [citation needed]

takanori 7y ago

Has there ever been a platform for experts to build and share checklists and for every/any task?

zzaner 7y ago
Not that I know of but I came across this curated compilation of checklists: https://github.com/huyingjie/Checklist-Checklist https://github.com/huyingjie/Checklist-Checklist
- takanori 7y ago
  Any arguments why this would or wouldn’t work?

aeturnum 7y ago

Also worth mentioning the power of engaging our bodies physically and verbally to ensure we're engaging with checklists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling

runjake 7y ago

Checklists were life in the USAF working on heavy bombers and the nuclear PRP program. I’ve done a procedure 100 or a 1000 times? Still going down the checklist in the Tech Manual every single time. Humans can’t multitask well and if you miss a step, people can die and planes could crash.

wiscoDude 7y ago

After my partner read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, he set out to help other organizations improve outcomes via the use of checklists. Together, we built https://www.manifest.ly https://www.manifest.ly My main feedback from having witnessed thousands of organizations set up their checklists is that they can be used to help teams succeed and they can be used in an oppressive way to "ensure people do what they're supposed to do". Almost always they contain too many steps compared to what they should have and that is usually because the people creating/editing the checklists are often not the users of the actual checklist. When the users and editors are the same people, then the quality of the checklist goes up. We use our own tool on a daily bases for processes that have high risks or for processes that we don't do very often. They are great safety nets.

qwerty456127 7y ago

People share some IT-related checklists on GitHub already. It would be cool to see more checklists on non-IT subjects.

hellosputnik 7y ago

The article reminds me of Brendan Gregg's talk, "Performance Checklists for SREs". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxCWXNigDpA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxCWXNigDpA

JBlue42 7y ago

Tom Limoncelli had a nice article about how documentation/checklists is the beginning of automation in an IT setting. Manual Work Is A Bug: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3197520 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3197520 Makes a lot of sense and something I advocate for in my department.

unethical_ban 7y ago

What is the name of the font on that B-17 checklist? It is that mid-century engineering font that I love so much.