Over the years, the complexity of our collective knowledge vastly exceeds capacity of any individual to get everything right.
This reminds me of the book checklist manifesto [1]
Even simple tools like checklist can substantially decrease errors and spare much of our cognitive capacity in doing quality work.
Checklists are amazing. Humans are really clever, but we're too good at context, and will completely miss steps, especially if the outcome of the previous step is unexpected.
This is, I think, something that a lot of people who push back against checklists missunderstand. They feel that the checklist is meant as a replacement for their knowledge, skill and experience. An insult to their ability. But really it's just meant to help them not make very human errors of ommission or miss-sequencing that anyone, no matter how smart or experienced, can make.
Too many experts, in every field, stuggle with the idea that they too will make mistakes sometimes, and that this is perfectly normal no matter how good you are at what you do if you doo it often enough.
> ... the checklist is the most effective system of preventing errors, so effective that pilots and surgeons use checklists routinely when they fly and operate. (When I had a recent biopsy, I noticed the surgeon and nurses clearly following checklists as they confirmed the site for the procedure before anesthetizing me, checked my identification bracelet and asked my name and date of birth.)
Suddenly I'm picturing a new world in which we knowledge workers all have our own personal wikis and carefully go through a checklist for all new info we add to it. Not only "is this AI?" but a general sanity check too.
Banking on discipline in any human endeavour seems to be fool's errand. You will get more reliable results by improving the environment, systems and tools. This can be seen in how much checklists have improved the quality and reliability in fields like medicine. We are in a field where we can literally codify the checklists to enforce them.
I think a little checklist would help me remember things that are easy to forget, like updating documentation or making sure that a test exists to reproduce the issue. That said, at the end of the day tools exist to help us, not slow us down. If they is a small PR that fixes a typo then I want to be trusted to skip the checklist completely.
This article seemed inconclusive. They identified some differences of factors between things going right vs wrong but didn’t follow through with a scientific study.
Atul Gawande’s “The Checklist Manifesto” comes to mind, where he argues that even experts need checklists to walk them through the key steps in any complex procedure. These complexities are such that it is easy to forget a key step or two. Following such checklists or written procedures minimize errors. He then shows how using checklists improves successful outcomes significantly.
Checklists are great for not forgetting about things, and forgetting about things is a common source of human error (oh man, I forgot to run unit tests/recover those foreceps from the abdominal cavity/etc). It’s not sufficient, because sometimes you have to make judgment calls and creative decisions, but even then, I’d rather be free to think about that stuff without having the back of my mind worrying about some fiddly steps I may forget.
Checklists applied rigorously have been _demonstrated_ to make a huge difference, see The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande [1]
This. There are some great bits about checklists and their (underutilized) role in preventing human error in Don Norman's Design of Everyday Things (chapter 5).
As long as the checklist catches more costly errors than the time to use it and the (very likely) negative secondary effects to critical thinking and innovation.
Love tools that help, eg checklists, when used right.
But over time they have a very strong tendency to become set-in-stone dogma, at which time they will create a priesthood and a very large dead zone where thinking and flexibility is no longer allowed.
Sure, stupid tools are pointless. But usefull tools...
If the point is to reduce the number of errors then it helps to at least have a checklist of the errors, and someone reminding the team of the checklist. Checklist process is one of the easiest quality and safety tools to implement.
Having a premade checklist that makes sense in the form of a process plan makes things easier.
Reminds me of another article here on the importance of checklists in surgery. Smart and even dedicated people will fuck up even the easiest and cheapest of solutions when the problem is subtle and the solution requires disciplined application. Introduce a simple checklist - a highly sophisticated piece of paper - and results dramatically improve.
This reminds me of the book checklist manifesto [1] Even simple tools like checklist can substantially decrease errors and spare much of our cognitive capacity in doing quality work.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Checklist_Manifesto
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