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I can see how checklists are valuable for extreme high-stakes but routine operations, like surgery or aviation. But in practice, in the realities that we face

I can see how checklists are valuable for extreme high-stakes but routine operations, like surgery or aviation. But in practice, in the realities that we face in non-life-critical jobs, they're oppressive. Some project managers cling to the fantasy that work will get done in a predictable and orderly fashion if only they wrote down everything that needs to be done and put checkbox next to it (preferably with a target date). The problem is for many projects we don't know what needs to be done in advance or we don't have a deep bench of experienced talent that is able to even generate a realistic checklist. What often happens with these "checklist project managers" is that they end up creating excessively turgid checklists for which many items are inapplicable to the task at hand, many important items are utterly missing, and there's no prioritization of which things are truly the most critical-- everything's just an identically emphasized line item. Checklists are for activities which are _extremely_ well understood, practiced exhaustively, and also critical to the mission.

kiba 7y ago
Sounds like part of the problem is that checklists aren't being applied properly, given that checklists are constantly refined and adapted as needed to situations. Also, checklist aren't just valuable only for high stakes operation. For example, I find use in checklist for ensuring that I have my everyrday carry.. My only problem was that I kept forgetting to use the checklist....
ellius 7y ago
You can get value from making your own. I have a small list for coding that says "commit, test, story" that reminds me to be always saving my work, coding against a test, and testing against a story. As long as you remember that you're the one in charge and don't treat it like your boss, a list can be a great aid to memory and discipline.
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  You're right there's a lot of value in writing down what you need to do on a personal level, adapt and modify it to suit yourself and the situation at hand. It's not "your boss" and that's why it helps. I am talking about checklists devised in a work situation by "a boss" as an integral part of how work is actually preformed. It's sooo easy for these things to get stupid when they're abused. A checklist, used improperly, is like a pre-waterfall workflow-- almost militaristic in it's simplicity.
tvanantwerp 7y ago
I find checklists useful for an routine and well-defined task, mission-critical or not. Just saves me a lot of headache by making sure I don't forget things. Stress from, e.g., forgetting milk at the store isn't the same as stress from operating on the wrong body part; but it's still an annoyance and easily eliminated--so why not?
justaguyhere 7y ago
Some project managers cling to the fantasy that work will get done in a predictable and orderly fashion if only they wrote down everything that needs to be done and put checkbox next to it (preferably with a target date) That sounds more like a to-do list, rather than a checklist. The way I understand checklist is to have a short (or manageable) and repeatable list of very important items that need to be checked before major events (surgery, software release, flight take off etc). If there are dates next to items and every single tiny item is in the list, then it is a todo list.
ISL 7y ago
Done right, checklists set you free. They set a minimum bar for the completion of a task. You know when you've hit every point that you've considered at least the things you thought were so important that you put them on the checklist. I have spent years refining one checklist. It has completely transformed how I think about that task and how efficiently/often I execute it. Checklists are appropriate for procedural tasks, or tasks that must be complete before moving on, not directly to R&D. One can might a clock-cycle of R&D with a checklist (Hypothesize, plan, test, analyze, repeat), but if a checklist feels like it is strangling you, it has not yet been sufficiently refined.

kiba 7y ago

Sounds like part of the problem is that checklists aren't being applied properly, given that checklists are constantly refined and adapted as needed to situations. Also, checklist aren't just valuable only for high stakes operation. For example, I find use in checklist for ensuring that I have my everyrday carry.. My only problem was that I kept forgetting to use the checklist....

ellius 7y ago

You can get value from making your own. I have a small list for coding that says "commit, test, story" that reminds me to be always saving my work, coding against a test, and testing against a story. As long as you remember that you're the one in charge and don't treat it like your boss, a list can be a great aid to memory and discipline.

crispyambulance 7y ago
You're right there's a lot of value in writing down what you need to do on a personal level, adapt and modify it to suit yourself and the situation at hand. It's not "your boss" and that's why it helps. I am talking about checklists devised in a work situation by "a boss" as an integral part of how work is actually preformed. It's sooo easy for these things to get stupid when they're abused. A checklist, used improperly, is like a pre-waterfall workflow-- almost militaristic in it's simplicity.

tvanantwerp 7y ago

I find checklists useful for an routine and well-defined task, mission-critical or not. Just saves me a lot of headache by making sure I don't forget things. Stress from, e.g., forgetting milk at the store isn't the same as stress from operating on the wrong body part; but it's still an annoyance and easily eliminated--so why not?

justaguyhere 7y ago

Some project managers cling to the fantasy that work will get done in a predictable and orderly fashion if only they wrote down everything that needs to be done and put checkbox next to it (preferably with a target date) That sounds more like a to-do list, rather than a checklist. The way I understand checklist is to have a short (or manageable) and repeatable list of very important items that need to be checked before major events (surgery, software release, flight take off etc). If there are dates next to items and every single tiny item is in the list, then it is a todo list.

ISL 7y ago

Done right, checklists set you free. They set a minimum bar for the completion of a task. You know when you've hit every point that you've considered at least the things you thought were so important that you put them on the checklist. I have spent years refining one checklist. It has completely transformed how I think about that task and how efficiently/often I execute it. Checklists are appropriate for procedural tasks, or tasks that must be complete before moving on, not directly to R&D. One can might a clock-cycle of R&D with a checklist (Hypothesize, plan, test, analyze, repeat), but if a checklist feels like it is strangling you, it has not yet been sufficiently refined.