Checklists in the real world...

This afternoon I understood the real reasons why checklists are important.

I flew a small Cessna-172 Golf Bravo Golf Zulu. Although I have been a believer in checklists - even though their use is challenging in the software world - I realized how critical using them can be and how useful they ought to be when comes time to inspect a plane before to take off.

No, my pilot was not holding a piece of paper and a pen, checking things off a list. He did not even know the exact number of items on the list. He just did the inspection required by this process with our possible death as a consequence of a checklist failure. This was enough for him to do it diligently. Thanks Marc!

We have many occasions to use checklists when creating software products, there are indeed plenty review processes at all phases of the job:

1. Specification
   
2. Estimation
3. Architecture and Design
4. Code
5. QA
6. etc...

I am observing that we sometime fail with checklists. Although we do it correctly most of the time, sometimes we still fail.

After today's experience, I believe that the answer to checklist success lies in a couple factors:

• Professionalism

Understand your role when reviewing and the impact you can have on the overall quality and risk mitigation.

• Agility
  

Assuming professionalism, you do not need to tick things off a list to claim that you have applied a check list. In doubt, go back to it when needed, revisit the checklist to confirm your understanding of the checklist.

Next time you are provided with a checklist, do not necessarily think that you have to print it or tick things off of it to use it, be smart and agile enough so you can perform the review process with diligence.

To help with applying checklist, imagine that you are reviewing a component of a plane that you will fly, I can assure you that you will likely do the right thing!

To get a feel of my flight load this into Google Earth, select it and hit play.