I’m reading the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. It’s a fascinating read based on the observation that more errors today come not from ignorance but from ineptitude. In other words, mistakes are made despite the knowledge that we have……….knowledge that could have averted the error. In the medical field, this can have catastrophic results. In other fields, they just add up to $$ spent on unnecessary items. His answer is that checklist are a good way to capture that knowledge and remind us of what we know. I recommend the book.
Now how would a checklist work with portal and collaboration? I have two observations on that.
1. When pushing a fairly complicated application based portal from dev to stage to train to prod, we ran into the same problem in a certain configuration. The admin forgot to set it right in Dev. He made the same mistake in Stage. He made the same mistake again in Train. I finally went to him and reminded him of his error in the three previous environments and of the consequences to all of us if we failed to launch Prod because of that. He promised to make it right………………….I put that and many other things on a checklist.
2. Collaboration technology does use checklists. If you go to any legacy collaboration tool, you almost always find a task list of some sort. If you go to IBM’s Lotus Connections tool, you find Activities. Activities allow you to create a template of repeatable tasks/sub-tasks and make them a common activity that can be shared by all. Now I realize that I’m using my own rose colored glasses when reading a book like the Checklist Manifesto. I see that while experts like Doctors and Pilots should make the checklists, the tools to make it easy to capture and to capture information in context around it can be done using technology. In my heart, I still believe technology can and should be an enabler. I think that something like Activities should be used to make it easier to prep for surgery or onboard a new supplier.
So what are your thoughts? Has anyone else read this book? Do you find it worthwhile?
Interesting post, Mike. How do you feel about checklists in relation to workflow? I’ve always looked at workflow and any process as simply another type of checklist. A checklist in which each item on the list is dependent upon the the one that preceeds it. I will check out the Checklist Manifesto. I’ve always been a bit of a nut about checklists anyway, so I’m sure it will be useful. The Freakonomics blogger on NYTimes.com indicated it was one of the best books he had read in decades!
So I finished reading the book. Checklists have less to do with workflow and more to do with a way of tracking the complexity of certain things. We all think we are smart but forget certain things. For example, your expense process may have certain things that you have to do like make sure to put specific text in the comments field and don’t forget to send the originals. If those things are on the checklist then I haven’t forgotten something that will cause expenses to be rejected.
if you want to automate a workflow process, then take a look at various BPM or human based workflow products like IBM’s Process Server, Oracle Business Process Management, or even Tasica Director for more simple needs.