Guidebook, Ideas
by Rob England

How to use Checklists

Checklists are an essential tool to minimise errors and maximise efficiency when the heat is on and you need to act.

We have the world of information at our finger-tips. Our operational tools get better every day. Yet things still go wrong on a regular basis. Then we take the opportunity to prove that there is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse. Why do we screw up? And why do we then screw up trying to fix it? My favourite magic-pixie-dust quick-win cure-whatever-ails-you fix (no seriously this time) is checklists.

According to Atul Gawande, author of the Checklist Manifesto, the magnitude of today’s knowledge has exceeded our ability to deliver it safely, consistently and correctly. A simple checklist can bring about striking improvements in almost any field (think aircraft pilots). Checklists are an essential tool to minimise errors and maximise efficiency when the heat is on and you need to act. One top tip for all work: have the checklist ready when you need it.

Start by reading the book The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Come back when you are done.

Already? OK, moving on:

Ever watched one of those aircrash TV programmes? What do the pilots do when three engines fail? The pilot says “Quick, get the checklist for Three Engines Failed” and the co-pilot reaches for a chunky ring-binder which seems to have a checklist for every conceivable scenario.

Pilots understand the importance of a cool head and correct action in a Situation. They understand that a cool head is kept when the thinking is done in advance.

They also understand that Situations are caused in the first place through basic procedural errors and checklists are just as important to prevent them.

To take another similar industry, I was lucky enough to hear Chris Hadfield, singing astronaut, speak at a Pink Elephant ITSM Conference. He told us how, when NASA decide a space walk is required they plan it for a week before anybody opens the door. Even when it is an emergency (the space station is leaking) they plan it FOR A WHOLE DAY. (He also gave me the “no problem so bad…” line I used above). What’s the best way to capture all that pre-thinking? A checklist.

Checklists don’t insult our intelligence: they don’t tell us HOW to do something. They are not a script or work instruction. They just remind us that it should be done, and sometimes they also remind us in what order.

Hadfield gave us another lesson: visualise – and plan for – failure more than success. So we have one checklist that describes the normal successful actions. Then we have several more checklists for each of the negative scenarios we can anticipate.

Finally checklists are a learning tool. We all practice continual improvement, right? So when an incident or problem or change review captures that an error was made, we also fix the checklist. And when a Situation was created that we had never foreseen, we create a checklist for how to deal with it next time. (For more on this cycle, see my book Response Taiji: The Standard+Case Approach.)

So what do you need to do to take advantage of this one simple top tip?

First read that Checklist Manifesto book (liar! read it now). Then:

  • Create a process to capture knowledge for checklists
  • Store checklists in your knowledgebase (got one of those, right?)
  • Establish ownership for maintaining each checklist – this is the hard part 
  • Train people in what is there, how to find them, and how to use a checklist.
  • Review and encourage use
  • Watch the improvement. Feed back results.
  • Capture learnings to improve, including improving checklists

 

Basic principles of checklists

Here are some basic principles to bear in mind when defining checklists. Use this checklist as you create checklists of your own!

Many of these ideas come from  The Checklist Manifesto .


It assumes expertise: it talks the user’s language and assumes they know what it is talking about (though supplementary explanations are OK if necessary). The checklist is there to prevent errors of omission not errors of ignorance.

. Don’t write a checklist for a wide subject area (“Change checklist”).

In the title, 

A checklist used during a single procedure is called a READ-DO checklist: read out an item, do it, check it off.
A checklist used at a point in time or “pause point” in a procedure is a DO-CONFIRM checklist: do what you need to do, then pause to confirm them all on the checklist.
To those categories I’d add a CHECK-CONFIRM category, used in assessment and audit to ensure all accountabilities, capabilities, controls and activities are in place.

Rules of thumb: no more than ten items, or one minute to perform the check.

Some people crave completeness: don’t try to put everything in. The Checklist of Checklists says the items should be:

  • A critical safety step and in great danger of being missed?
  • Not adequately checked by other mechanisms?
  • Actionable, with a specific response required for each item?
  • Designed to be read aloud as a verbal check?
  • One that can be affected by the use of a checklist?

To establish a checklist

  • Create a process to capture knowledge for checklists
  • Store checklists in your knowledgebase (got one of those, right?)
  • establish accountability for each checklist – this is the hard part
  • Train people in what is there, how to find them, and how to use a checklist.
  • review and enforce use
  • Watch the improvement.
  • Feed back results.
  • Capture learnings to improve, including improving checklists

For more information on how to do checklists, see a Checklist for Checklists from Dr Gawande.