
Peter Pronovost’s checklists better intensive care (long) - ColinWright
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/10/071210fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all
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ColinWright
For many years I' been struggling to introduce more rigorous use of checklists
at work, but everyone always balked at them, saying that it was too trivial,
too time-consuming, and too brain-dead. I meticulously cataloged the errors
made and the time taken to resolve them and finally presented a report, and
this article.

Finally, checklists are starting to become routine, and people wonder why they
never used them before. The mindless drudgery of having to remember minor and
minute details has been lifted, and they can concentrate on what's different
and difficult about each situation.

My uncle is an aerobatics pilot, and he says that the incredibly low rate of
incidents in aviation is due to the ubiquitous use of checklists.

What could you use one for?

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tomjen3
The problem I have with checklists are that I tend to treat then as I treat my
shopping list: make it, look at it and forget half of it.

What do you use your checklists for?

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ColinWright
Can't say in details. Broadly:

* checking specific configuration items,

* performing deployment in a specific order (even when it doesn't matter),

* testing deployment step-wise (so you know certain things work when debugging something that doesn't)

... and so on. We start with a checklist, and we then push as much as we can
do automated scripts. At the end of a deployment we have a checklist to ask
what can be moved from checklists to scripts. Next time round we do both to
check that the script works, then reduce the checklist.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It's making it "the norm" that's having the biggest effect. People are
starting to know that certain things will work, and it releases them from
tedious checking.

