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Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

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Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#41

Post by blamazon »

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…

There are firms that specialize in software to do exactly what you’re describing. But a lot of it is just cultural. For example, how do you make sure checklists are updated? You hire people whose sole job is to update checklists.

One example of a software firm in this space: https://www.fieldlogs.com/FieldLogsStatic/index.html

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#42

Post by [deleted] »

vincentmarle wrote: post #2

> Making a good human-usable checklist takes a lot of workshopping. Airlines are still constantly revising their 200-page manual of individually optimized checklists for every possible emergency, as plane designs change and new safety data rolls in. When I first read the book a couple years ago, and introduced checklists into my team, I found that there was no great tool to manage and create checklists and share it w…

[deleted]

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#43

Post by TeMPOraL »

mikestew wrote: post #15
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.

Welcome to the genre of self-help books. I can't recall the last one I read that couldn't have just as easily been a long essay. "Here's a few good points and ideas, surrounded by a fuck-ton of anecdotes and proverbs, because you're not going to pay $20 for a magazine article."

A charitable view I hold on days when my mood is good is, for each of us at any given point in life, there exists a magic sequence of words that will make a concept stick. That may be a story that hits one "right in the feels". That may be a sentence, the right sentence, that makes a complex concept finally click in one's head. So all those books, each talking about the same thing, each repeating an article's worth of content 200 different ways - they're maximizing the amount of readers that find the magical uttering, for whom it all falls into place.

On regular days with regular mood, I say it's just easy way of milking people, and that self-help genre died soon after being born, i.e. back in the days of Dale Carnegie.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#44

Post by Rd6n6 »

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.

As somebody who also read the book, I recommend the book but totally agree. There are some interesting anecdotes in there but many are more interesting than persuasive. The book could have been half its length. I use checklists a lot and didn’t learn as much as I would have liked

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#45

Post by sul_tasto »

macrael wrote: post #21

I've been using https://buckaroosoftware.com/ChecklistWrangler.html for years now on my phone for my personal checklists. It's got way more features than I need (and hasn't been updated in years) honestly even checking things off the list is probably overkill and I could just use a text file, but its the only thing I found on the App Store that actually did a checklist instead of a task list. I've got drawings for a…

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/checklist-wrangler/id297229943

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#46

Post by larrywright »

Rd6n6 wrote: post #44
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.

As somebody who also read the book, I recommend the book but totally agree. There are some interesting anecdotes in there but many are more interesting than persuasive. The book could have been half its length. I use checklists a lot and didn’t learn as much as I would have liked

It's been a few years since I read it, but my recollection is that it presented the same information as the article, but added a bunch of additional studies and supporting arguments. Which didn't add any value at all.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#47

Post by larrywright »

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?

If he had only written the book, I likely wouldn't complain. But the fact that he accomplished the goal - convincing me that checklists were awesome - in a much shorter article, tells me that the rest of the book was unnecessary.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#48

Post by TeMPOraL »

macrael wrote: post #21

I've been using https://buckaroosoftware.com/ChecklistWrangler.html for years now on my phone for my personal checklists. It's got way more features than I need (and hasn't been updated in years) honestly even checking things off the list is probably overkill and I could just use a text file, but its the only thing I found on the App Store that actually did a checklist instead of a task list. I've got drawings for a…

Need something like this for Android.

Somewhere in my unassorted notes, there's a sketch of a checklist app too, made right around the time I read "The Checklist Manifesto". My experience is the same: everyone does task lists. Nobody seems to be doing checklists - sequences[0] of tasks that repeat ad infinitum, evolve over time, and need to be surfaced based on situational context.

--

[0] - Actually not sequences, and not trees, but directed acyclic graphs. But this isn't the right time and place to go on a yet another rant about how none of the "hot" players in task management have figured this out.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#49

Post by axpy906 »

tablespoon wrote: post #30
mikestew wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the genre of self-help books. I can't recall the last one I read that couldn't have just as easily been a long essay. "Here's a few good points and ideas, surrounded by a fuck-ton of anecdotes and proverbs, because you're not going to pay $20 for a magazine article."

> "Here's a few good points and ideas, surrounded by a fuck-ton of anecdotes and proverbs, because you're not going to pay $20 for a magazine article." Though to be fair, sometimes those anecdotes are useful. I like examples, especially ones where an idea is applied to a situation that resembles my own. Also repetition is helpful to actually have a concept sink in. Also, what's filler for you may be the most relevant…

I think we’ve lost the plot. The important thing is if you can recall and then use what’s in the book.

If it takes repetition or length to do it, so be it.

Some books even recommend you read them a second time for that purpose, like Getting Things Done and How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Re: Book review: The Checklist Manifesto

#50

Post by egypturnash »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43
mikestew wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the genre of self-help books. I can't recall the last one I read that couldn't have just as easily been a long essay. "Here's a few good points and ideas, surrounded by a fuck-ton of anecdotes and proverbs, because you're not going to pay $20 for a magazine article."

A charitable view I hold on days when my mood is good is, for each of us at any given point in life, there exists a magic sequence of words that will make a concept stick. That may be a story that hits one "right in the feels". That may be a sentence, the right sentence, that makes a complex concept finally click in one's head. So all those books, each talking about the same thing, each repeating an article's worth o…

IMHO both of these views are true. Some books make the "milking" part more obvious than others.
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