The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

208 pages

English language

Published Nov. 6, 2009

ISBN:: 978-0-8050-9174-8
Goodreads:: 6667514

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(2 reviews)

4 editions

technicat@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Really important read, put it on your list

5 stars

This is a must-read for anyone facing point of no return situations, and not even life or death cases as discussed in the book like surgery (with personal experience from the author) and aviation (the inspiration for applying checklists to surgery). Even in software, where we now take for granted checklists of the automated kind, obviously there are cases of bad releases, bad deployments, and bad ideas (and actually, some of those could kill people). Like anything else, the idea can be used badly (I've had a manager use a checklist as a power trip tool), but at its most effective it changes culture so that teams (not just a lone hero as, the book points out, the press tends to highlight, because hey great teamwork doesn't make headlines) know what to do in an emergency and better yet, avoids them.

Flippin' 'Eck, Reader reviewed The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

Immensely valuable to everyone

5 stars

I'm not ususally impressed by self-help books of any kind. But I had this recommended to me by several people and so decided to give it a go.

It's a fairly slim volume, and easy to read. In it the author (who is a surgeon in the USA) discusses how the simple use of checklists can vastly improve correctness and compensate for human fallibility. Starting with the example of example of aircraft safety, he then moves on to large scale construction projects and then the majority of the book examines his attempts to introduce the idea of checklists to surgical operating theatres worldwide.

In essence his argument is that in many lines of work, people need to become ever more specialised in very specific areas. However complex tasks require many specialisms, and so teams of people (who may never have met before) often need to be able to understand each …

I'm not ususally impressed by self-help books of any kind. But I had this recommended to me by several people and so decided to give it a go.

It's a fairly slim volume, and easy to read. In it the author (who is a surgeon in the USA) discusses how the simple use of checklists can vastly improve correctness and compensate for human fallibility. Starting with the example of example of aircraft safety, he then moves on to large scale construction projects and then the majority of the book examines his attempts to introduce the idea of checklists to surgical operating theatres worldwide.

In essence his argument is that in many lines of work, people need to become ever more specialised in very specific areas. However complex tasks require many specialisms, and so teams of people (who may never have met before) often need to be able to understand each other's thought processes and concerns, often at quite short notice for very critical - sometimes literally life-or-death - scenarios. And the use of a humble checklist can make an enormous difference as to their success rates.

The evidence he presents seems compelling and it has certainly made me think about the multitude of tasks I do at work. I'd recommend it to anyone who has to manage their way through complicated systems, especially if it involves working with other people.