Donate an idea to HN: Checklists

Here's an idea that I'm never going to get time to follow up. Maybe it has merit, maybe not. If you want it, it's yours. If it makes billions, remember me.

A colleague who is a hobbyist aerobatics pilot says that aviation has become as safe as it is through the ubiquitous use of checklists. Everything has a checklist, and said checklist goes into the smallest detail. I've taken that on-board and we're starting to use explicit checklists when we deploy new systems, run through tests, diagnose problems, etc., and it's starting to make a real difference.

But building the checklists was a pain.

Recently I had a new boiler installed at home. No problems, great hot water, great heating, everything seemed fine. Now I find that some of the hot water taps are leaking. They were installed with the older, lower pressure system in place, and they need upgrading to cope with mains pressure hot water. Similarly, sometimes the kitchen hot water tap makes loud, ugly noises.

If I'd had a checklist of things to confirm before signing off, the plumbers would never have left the building without dealing with them. They're being great, but it's costing them time and money, and me hassle, to get these things put straight.

A checklist would save time, money and hassle.

How about a web site where I type in "Hot water" and it gives me a checklist. Or "New ISP" and it gives me a checklist. Perhaps the checklist can then be refined further, or perhaps it allows me to mark things as done or pending.

I think I'd pay money to be registered with a site like that.

Comments?

With tagging and/or search.

Yes.

Think of a household or service disaster, and ask whether it could've been saved/improved by asking the right question at the right time.

Crazy, I had this same idea around the beginning of the year and actually fooled around for a couple hours working on a prototype. It'd be great if someone actually made this :)

Given internet access, one could build such a thing pretty easily atop SpringPad, which has pretty extensive template generation and sharing features built in:

http://springpadit.com

I used to work with a number of these guys. Given what I know about how the site works, they could probably get you off and running pretty quickly in the unlikely event that it doesn't already do what you want.

Interesting idea.

How would you deal with differences of opinions in what should be on the checklist for a topic? Wiki-style colloboration?