Checklist Manifesto

I've been wanting to read this book for a long time but I knew it was going to be a bunch of stories about how checklists saved the day. Turns out, that what it was. However, there were a few interesting insights. First, checklists are suprisingly effective. The amount of issues arising from surgery that are 100% eliminated by checklists makes me think there should be laws. There's also subtlety around how to use a checklist. A checklist's primary function is to drive conversation around the most important parts of a project. An effective list for a complex project is closer to a list of check points. A side effect of the list is that it distributes power and shows how all of us are smarter than any of us.

This book also addresses that we are all, in fact, human. Anyone claiming to be better than human is essentially worse. The aviation and construction industries have acknowledged this fact and successfully implemented checklists to accomplish what no hotshot pilot nor master builder could ever have done. Much like todo lists free an individual to be creative, checklists seems to free groups to worry about the hardest parts of the project.

I wish the book went into more detail on how to write a checklist; however, I suppose there's only so much of an art you can teach in a book. From his description of how he created checklists for surgery, there are certain psychological factors that need to be addressed as well as empirical data that need to be gathered. The checklist cannot create friction as that will cause folks to avoid using it. The data must be gathered to make sure you're checking the right things. It's really hard to generalize what a good checklist looks like because it's so dependent on the goals and team. However, if the list is hard to use or it's checking the wrong things, you can guarantee it won't be worth the effort.

---