The Checklist Manifesto

After hearing Atul Gawande talking on Radio 4 a month or so ago, I was chatting with a restauranteur about the program who recommend I read ‘The Checklist Manifesto’.

It’s based around the use of checklists within the health sector to drive efficiency, increase productivity and ultimately saves lives.

It’s a strong academic basis for Trail, arguing that completing complex activities requiring many different systems and skill sets without some tools to order actions and inputs leads to mistakes. ’The Checklist Manifesto’ argues that the introduction of operating procedures, followed by all, reduces the margin of error.

Trail could take some founding principles from this and I’m sorely tempted to start wheeling them out in my sales pitches:

“A checklist is only an aid. If it does not aid, it is not right. But if it does, we must embrace it.”

“We are obsessed with having great components but pay little attention to how to make them fit together well.”

”..Checklists may be painstaking. They are not much fun. We feel embarrassed in using a check list. It is as if the truly great are daring and can handle any complexity. They do not need protocols and check lists. But this is not the truth. Great success is the result of team work and adherence to strict discipline and procedure.”

I think the best bit has to be something I’d thought was an urban myth:

“Van Halen’s insistence on having a bowl of M&M’s, with the brown ones removed, was not in fact the unreasonable request of an egocentric pop band. This request was carefully submerged in a 90 page document that they provided for venue organisers to ensure the safety of their concerts. If the brown M&M’s were still present they knew that the document had not been carefully read and that further safety checks were required which often revealed preventable hazards.”

Brilliant. Where’s my rider?