[HN Gopher] Book review: The Checklist Manifesto
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Book review: The Checklist Manifesto
Author : lobbly
Score : 71 points
Date : 2021-09-22 22:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lesswrong.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lesswrong.com)
| ncmncm wrote:
| Amazingly enough, most fields where death from mistakes is
| common, other than aviation and medicine, _still_ do not use
| checklists. And, even most hospitals still don 't, or do only in
| some places.
|
| Police don't, anywhere I know of. Probably a few fire crews do (I
| bet mainly at airports).
|
| Arguably, not using checklists, or even just not using one that
| one time, should automatically cause the defendant to lose any
| wrongful-death lawsuit.
| zzzbra wrote:
| this is completely unrelated to the content of the post, but,
| since when has lesswrong have such clean web design? 0.o
| adamzerner wrote:
| > In 2015-2016 the site underwent a steady decline of activity
| leading some to declare the site dead. In 2017, a team led by
| Oliver Habryka took over the administration and development of
| the site, relaunching it on an entirely new codebase later that
| year.
|
| > The new project, dubbed LessWrong 2.0, was the first time
| LessWrong had a full-time dedicated development team behind it
| instead of only volunteer hours. Site activity recovered from
| the 2015-2016 decline and has remained at steady levels since
| the launch.
|
| - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/S69ogAGXcc9EQjpcZ/a-brief-
| hi...
| vincentmarle wrote:
| > Making a good human-usable checklist takes a lot of
| workshopping. Airlines are still constantly revising their
| 200-page manual of individually optimized checklists for every
| possible emergency, as plane designs change and new safety data
| rolls in.
|
| When I first read the book a couple years ago, and introduced
| checklists into my team, I found that there was no great tool to
| manage and create checklists and share it with my team. We were
| basically copy pasting messages over and over in Slack and
| "checking" them off manually by editing the message. Is there a
| tool or SaaS out there that solves this problem? (If not, great
| startup idea?)
| trees101 wrote:
| obsidian is great for both notes and checklists. It allows you
| to have a simple checklist up front, but with clickable links
| that hide as much (multimedia) information, internal and
| external links as you need.
| throwaway192874 wrote:
| Most project management systems have methods for dealing with
| checklists, this is definitely not what slack is designed to do
| no matter how much they market it as a "productivity tool"
|
| So if you're not using something for project management first
| you need one of those, but just about everyone does, and once
| you have one you can start using it's checklist features
|
| Then it depends on what that specific software offers, but even
| if it doesn't have a true feature for creating "templatized
| checklists" which I assume people want so they can repeat the
| same list, most have duplication functionality so you can just
| create one as a template and duplicate it as needed.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| Evernote has recently introduced checklists/tasks feature which
| is kind of nice though I have not tried sharing them.
| blamazon wrote:
| Here's one:
| https://www.fieldlogs.com/FieldLogsStatic/index.html
| throwaway192874 wrote:
| Legitimate question, is there enough interesting information in
| this book worth reading if you already agree with the premise,
| that in complex situations checklists can be good?
|
| I've known about it for awhile and this review does a good job at
| providing a real-world example of where it's useful, so other
| than ideas of how to make good checklists I'm not sure if
| actually reading it is something I should do
| circuit8 wrote:
| It completely changed the way I work. I'm now a checklist
| making machine and I find it helps so much, not only with
| clearly defining what I'm aiming to do, but also with
| motivation, as each checkbox is a very small bitesize chunk
| that always seems manageable. I recommend giving it a shot.
| It's really short aswell so you could smash it out in an
| afternoon.
| mikestew wrote:
| If you have the means to "waste" money on the price of the
| book, I'd recommend it. But by "waste", I mean that the book
| could have been a thick pamphlet, but publishers sell books and
| not pamphlets, so by golly that essay is going to get the shit
| fluffed out of it until it is book-length. So you're paying for
| a lot of marshmallow cream.
|
| That said, the premise is good and you might glean some good
| practices that you'll put to use. It's just that it's not worth
| the $15, IMO. If you have disposable income, buy it. Otherwise,
| just go read the New Yorker article referenced elsewhere in
| this thread.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I skimmed it years ago, it could really just be a long essay.
| paxys wrote:
| Fun fact, it _was_ a long essay which turned into a book -
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist
| (https://outline.com/8JS8h6)
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I meant to say it could have stayed a long essay. But it
| was probably more effective as a book, since people hand
| them out and gift them.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| I've always wondered how this merits a whole book...I mean, isn't
| the gist of it:
|
| "checklists are a good idea, even smart people benefit from them"
|
| ??
| djtriptych wrote:
| great book and reminded me to take a stab at a great checklist
| UI...
| ghotli wrote:
| The best thing in this book is all the information on how pilots
| have checklists for everything. The plane that landed in the
| Hudson is used as an example and the checklist for total engine
| failure used in the book is one of my favorites.
|
| In big bold letters at the top is "FLY THE AIRPLANE" along with
| each of the things the pilot should check.
|
| Takeaway is the reminder in the moment that you are trained for
| this and the checklist itself is exactly what checklists are for
| -- don't miss a step. Nothing more, nothing less.
| larrywright wrote:
| I liked this book, but it's a prime example of an article or blog
| post that gets turned into a book by adding a bunch of things
| that don't really provide more useful information, but seem to
| serve as filler to make it book-length.
|
| I read the book, and I read the article that the book was based
| on. I don't recall learning anything from the book that I hadn't
| already learned from the article.
| paxys wrote:
| Why is that a negative? If a book has interesting, engaging
| content why is it bad that it has 200 pages instead of 20?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Books like this, IMO, are generally better when split into 2
| pieces:
|
| 1. A "core" that describes the motivation for the ideas and
| then the ideas (as in, what makes a checklist, how
| comprehensive do they need to be, basic ideas on how to store
| and maintain them).
|
| 2. An expanded form, providing more detail on the motivation
| (issues that could have been mitigated if not eliminated with
| checklists, areas where checklists have succeeded, more
| specific practices around checklists that worked for some
| people, for the reader's consideration).
|
| This lets you skip the fluff if you've already been persuaded
| by going with (1), or if you need to be persuaded or want
| ideas on how to persuade others going with (2). A _lot_ of
| useful material ends up suffering from self-obfuscation by
| only providing or too strongly pushing (2) and not (1).
|
| Since there is the New Yorker article, in this case both (1)
| and (2) exist (after a fashion, it's been a few years since I
| read that article so I'm not sure anymore what's in it but it
| is much briefer than the book).
| colechristensen wrote:
| Because usually it doesn't. It usually boring redundant
| content where you have to dig for the point.
|
| The same is true for many articles: what I needed was a
| picture and a caption, what I got was 2000 words which didn't
| add much at all.
|
| Good writing of this kind makes its point right away and
| invites you to read more to expand on the point instead of
| holding the main idea hostage for most of the piece.
|
| Another failure of the attention economy.
| fredoliveira wrote:
| Because with less padding, people could spend the other 180
| pages reading about 9 other ideas.
|
| Naturally, I know that's not so simple, but it is one of the
| key issues I have with books that say the same thing over and
| over again -- lack of respect for the reader.
| hellisothers wrote:
| Agreed, I always wondered how those "Top 100 business books
| summarized!" books fit all that "content" into one book, then I
| read Checklist Manifesto...
| larrywright wrote:
| It's certainly not the only book I've read like that in the
| last few years. It's maddening - I value conciseness in a
| book, not length.
| FabHK wrote:
| The problem is that you can easily read a concise article,
| nod your head, understand it, and then entirely forget it.
|
| With a book, you get the main ideas presented multiple
| times, applied, examined, refined, put in context, etc.
| Now, you'll also forget all that apparently extraneous
| stuff, but at least you'll remember the main ideas.
| dvtrn wrote:
| I find myself wavering back and forth. Great fiction? Give
| me a big cinderblock of a book please. Full of world
| building and chapters dedicated to a single thread of
| thought going through a character's mind. Even to the point
| of sometimes when reading short fiction novels getting
| anxious towards the end, just knowing the ride is almost
| over.
|
| Non-fiction/fact-based/instructional books I flip-flop
| _hard_ between enjoying a brief enchiridion on leadership
| and management styles one moment while cradling a tome of a
| physics text book the next.
|
| Such indecisiveness heh.
| stormcode wrote:
| agreed. i read this book on recommendation several years ago
| and felt it could be distilled in a blog post and i probably
| would have gotten more out of it.
| gumby wrote:
| This is a plague on business books too, which are generally
| papers -- but who's going to buy a 10 page book from an airport
| bookshop? So they get padded on on autopilot.
|
| One of the few actually good business books (Crossing the
| chasm) is a single drawing!
| mikestew wrote:
| Welcome to the genre of self-help books. I can't recall the
| last one I read that couldn't have just as easily been a long
| essay. "Here's a few good points and ideas, surrounded by a
| fuck-ton of anecdotes and proverbs, because you're not going to
| pay $20 for a magazine article."
| tablespoon wrote:
| > "Here's a few good points and ideas, surrounded by a fuck-
| ton of anecdotes and proverbs, because you're not going to
| pay $20 for a magazine article."
|
| Though to be fair, sometimes those anecdotes are useful. I
| like examples, especially ones where an idea is applied to a
| situation that resembles my own. Also repetition is helpful
| to actually have a concept sink in.
|
| Also, what's filler for you may be the most relevant section
| for someone else (e.g. an anecdote that matches their
| situation but not yours, or necessary repetition).
|
| Also, I think software engineers, at least, have a bias to
| optimize for concision that can sometimes be
| counterproductive. For instance, I doubt a moderately long
| article that fully explains the core concept of cognitive
| behavior therapy would be as successful at actually changing
| the behavior of a depressed person than a more "redundant"
| book-length version. Maybe the short version would still work
| for some people, but that doesn't mean that's the best
| version for the majority of people.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| A charitable view I hold on days when my mood is good is, for
| each of us at any given point in life, there exists a magic
| sequence of words that will make a concept stick. That may be
| a story that hits one "right in the feels". That may be a
| sentence, the _right_ sentence, that makes a complex concept
| finally click in one 's head. So all those books, each
| talking about the same thing, each repeating an article's
| worth of content 200 different ways - they're maximizing the
| amount of readers that find the magical uttering, for whom it
| all falls into place.
|
| On regular days with regular mood, I say it's just easy way
| of milking people, and that self-help genre died soon after
| being born, i.e. back in the days of Dale Carnegie.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| What article was the book based on?
| [deleted]
| larrywright wrote:
| http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| As somebody who also read the book, I recommend the book but
| totally agree. There are some interesting anecdotes in there
| but many are more interesting than persuasive. The book could
| have been half its length. I use checklists a lot and didn't
| learn as much as I would have liked
| macrael wrote:
| I've been using
| https://buckaroosoftware.com/ChecklistWrangler.html for years now
| on my phone for my personal checklists. It's got way more
| features than I need (and hasn't been updated in years) honestly
| even checking things off the list is probably overkill and I
| could just use a text file, but its the only thing I found on the
| App Store that actually did a checklist instead of a task list.
| I've got drawings for a very simple checklist app but it's not
| become a side project yet.
| kmt-lnh wrote:
| Gawande mentions the checklist libraries of different
| manufacturers. I've checked the references (and parts of the
| citation graph) but didn't find anything about them. The closest
| were NASA's standards about the typography and structure of
| flight deck checklist. Does anybody know about how are checklists
| managed in the real word? How are they stored, retrieved and most
| importantly updated, when something changes? Not theoretically.
| from first principles, but like, at the manufacturer?
| drzoltar wrote:
| A better example is aviation, especially commercial. Planes
| come with Pilot Operating Handbooks (POHs) that contain
| checklists specific to the aircraft for preflight, inspection
| and failure scenarios (eg loss of engine power). Manufacturers
| periodically update these by issuing advisories and addendums
| to POHs. The FAA also publishes such advisories.
| dvtrn wrote:
| There's a scene in the movie "Sully" that occurs right after
| the bird strikes that I've seen a few people in commercial
| aviation respond very positively to in its depiction of
| checklists during a crisis moment.
| blamazon wrote:
| There are firms that specialize in software to do exactly what
| you're describing. But a lot of it is just cultural. For
| example, how do you make sure checklists are updated? You hire
| people who's sole job is to update checklists.
|
| One example of a software firm in this space:
| https://www.fieldlogs.com/FieldLogsStatic/index.html
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Not manufacturers, but here's the USAF's collection of
| checklists (not complete, bases and smaller units will have
| their own libraries that may not make it into this):
|
| https://www.e-publishing.af.mil/Product-Index/#/?view=search...
|
| The guidelines for updating are in there, as well, I believe.
| _n_b_ wrote:
| Nuclear industry here.
|
| In the fanciest systems, checklists live in a computerized
| procedure system tied into the plant process computer, so the
| plant state and procedures can be kept in sync and mistakes can
| be avoided when the software can see if you didn't actually do
| the step you were supposed to.
|
| A more conventional approach is a document management system
| and controlled binders in the control room with the latest
| procedures, often laminated so they can be marked up and wiped
| off.
|
| When working procedures on paper, we always use a circle-slash
| system for place-keeping: circle the step number when starting
| it, and slash through the circle when completed.
|
| Finally, key procedures should have a separate document
| documenting the bases of the procedure---why key values were
| chosen or what other documents they were taken from or depend
| on. That document becomes the key in change management---if a
| dependency changes, or you want to change the procedure, you
| can use the bases document to ensure side-effects are
| considered.
|
| Finally, procedures still have programmed regular reviews.
| austinjp wrote:
| Yeah so I'm somewhat tickled that a nuclear industry
| technician commenting on a thread about checklists has two
| "finally..." points :)
|
| Thanks too for the circle-slash system, I'm pinching that.
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