Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

lesswrong.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 91 posts

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#31

Post by dvtrn »

drzoltar wrote: post #23
kmt-lnh wrote: post #16

Gawande mentions the checklist libraries of different manufacturers. I've checked the references (and parts of the citation graph) but didn't find anything about them. The closest were NASA's standards about the typography and structure of flight deck checklist. Does anybody know about how are checklists managed in the real word? How are they stored, retrieved and most importantly updated, when something changes? Not…

A better example is aviation, especially commercial. Planes come with Pilot Operating Handbooks (POHs) that contain checklists specific to the aircraft for preflight, inspection and failure scenarios (eg loss of engine power). Manufacturers periodically update these by issuing advisories and addendums to POHs. The FAA also publishes such advisories.

There’s a scene in the movie “Sully” that occurs right after the bird strikes that I’ve seen a few people in commercial aviation respond very positively to in its depiction of checklists during a crisis moment.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#32

Post by ch4s3 »

paxys wrote: post #20
ch4s3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed it years ago, it could really just be a long essay.

Fun fact, it was a long essay which turned into a book – https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist ( https://outline.com/8JS8h6 )

I meant to say it could have stayed a long essay. But it was probably more effective as a book, since people hand them out and gift them.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#33

Post by colechristensen »

paxys wrote: post #19
larrywright wrote: post #4

I liked this book, but it’s a prime example of an article or blog post that gets turned into a book by adding a bunch of things that don’t really provide more useful information, but seem to serve as filler to make it book-length. I read the book, and I read the article that the book was based on. I don’t recall learning anything from the book that I hadn’t already learned from the article.

Why is that a negative? If a book has interesting, engaging content why is it bad that it has 200 pages instead of 20?

Because usually it doesn’t. It usually boring redundant content where you have to dig for the point.

The same is true for many articles: what I needed was a picture and a caption, what I got was 2000 words which didn’t add much at all.

Good writing of this kind makes its point right away and invites you to read more to expand on the point instead of holding the main idea hostage for most of the piece.

Another failure of the attention economy.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#34

Post by circuit8 »

throwaway192874 wrote: post #5

Legitimate question, is there enough interesting information in this book worth reading if you already agree with the premise, that in complex situations checklists can be good? I've known about it for awhile and this review does a good job at providing a real-world example of where it's useful, so other than ideas of how to make good checklists I'm not sure if actually reading it is something I should do

It completely changed the way I work. I'm now a checklist making machine and I find it helps so much, not only with clearly defining what I'm aiming to do, but also with motivation, as each checkbox is a very small bitesize chunk that always seems manageable. I recommend giving it a shot. It's really short aswell so you could smash it out in an afternoon.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#35

Post by FabHK »

larrywright wrote: post #11
hellisothers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I always wondered how those “Top 100 business books summarized!” books fit all that “content” into one book, then I read Checklist Manifesto…

It’s certainly not the only book I’ve read like that in the last few years. It’s maddening - I value conciseness in a book, not length.

The problem is that you can easily read a concise article, nod your head, understand it, and then entirely forget it.

With a book, you get the main ideas presented multiple times, applied, examined, refined, put in context, etc. Now, you’ll also forget all that apparently extraneous stuff, but at least you’ll remember the main ideas.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#36

Post by gumby »

larrywright wrote: post #4

I liked this book, but it’s a prime example of an article or blog post that gets turned into a book by adding a bunch of things that don’t really provide more useful information, but seem to serve as filler to make it book-length. I read the book, and I read the article that the book was based on. I don’t recall learning anything from the book that I hadn’t already learned from the article.

This is a plague on business books too, which are generally papers -- but who's going to buy a 10 page book from an airport bookshop? So they get padded on on autopilot.

One of the few actually good business books (Crossing the chasm) is a single drawing!

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#37

Post by ncmncm »

Amazingly enough, most fields where death from mistakes is common, other than aviation and medicine, still do not use checklists. And, even most hospitals still don't, or do only in some places.

Police don't, anywhere I know of. Probably a few fire crews do (I bet mainly at airports).

Arguably, not using checklists, or even just not using one that one time, should automatically cause the defendant to lose any wrongful-death lawsuit.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#38

Post by stormcode »

larrywright wrote: post #4

I liked this book, but it’s a prime example of an article or blog post that gets turned into a book by adding a bunch of things that don’t really provide more useful information, but seem to serve as filler to make it book-length. I read the book, and I read the article that the book was based on. I don’t recall learning anything from the book that I hadn’t already learned from the article.

agreed. i read this book on recommendation several years ago and felt it could be distilled in a blog post and i probably would have gotten more out of it.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#39

Post by austinjp »

_n_b_ wrote: post #28
kmt-lnh wrote: post #16

Gawande mentions the checklist libraries of different manufacturers. I've checked the references (and parts of the citation graph) but didn't find anything about them. The closest were NASA's standards about the typography and structure of flight deck checklist. Does anybody know about how are checklists managed in the real word? How are they stored, retrieved and most importantly updated, when something changes? Not…

Nuclear industry here. In the fanciest systems, checklists live in a computerized procedure system tied into the plant process computer, so the plant state and procedures can be kept in sync and mistakes can be avoided when the software can see if you didn’t actually do the step you were supposed to. A more conventional approach is a document management system and controlled binders in the control room with the lates…

Yeah so I'm somewhat tickled that a nuclear industry technician commenting on a thread about checklists has two "finally..." points :)

Thanks too for the circle-slash system, I'm pinching that.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#40

Post by adamzerner »

zzzbra wrote: post #17

this is completely unrelated to the content of the post, but, since when has lesswrong have such clean web design? 0.o

> In 2015-2016 the site underwent a steady decline of activity leading some to declare the site dead. In 2017, a team led by Oliver Habryka took over the administration and development of the site, relaunching it on an entirely new codebase later that year.

> The new project, dubbed LessWrong 2.0, was the first time LessWrong had a full-time dedicated development team behind it instead of only volunteer hours. Site activity recovered from the 2015-2016 decline and has remained at steady levels since the launch.

- https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/S69ogAGXcc9EQjpcZ/a-brief-hi...

Post reply on HN