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by Twirrim
2965 days ago
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Checklists are useful, but they have their limits. People too often get used to the routine and will end up skipping bits from checklists, or even outright missing stuff. It's strange, given whole idea of there being something to actually check would hopefully mitigate that. Generally I do my utmost to avoid having checklists, so that they're left for things where they can't be avoided (e.g. where automation makes no sense, or potentially makes things worse) |
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This depends on the person and their approach.
If I understand the need for each checklist step as a means of avoiding future hassle/work or outright danger of some sort, and I'm buying into the concept that I actually need to reference the checklist (perhaps even going so far as to print out a copy and actually physically check things off), and being properly conservative (no "I think I did that...", only "I know I did that" or "I double checked and yes I did that"), checklists stay very effective.
In other words, it's not enough to have a checklist, you need checklist discipline, the kind of discipline that can only be accomplished through buy-in to the concept. The same checklist approached with two different mindsets can range from a damn-near error free way to accomplish something, to a piece of scrap paper that would be worth more blank.
This does sometimes make checklist handoff problematic.
And your discipline might depend on the checklist. I'm way more disciplined about a release checklist than I am about a weekend chores checklist - and this is perfectly fine.