Testing and Checklists

Our team's book club at Linguamatics is looking at the The Checklist Manifesto. I found it exceptionally readable, commendably short, and very direct about its key message, which I'd summarise as something like this: checklists can be extremely valuable, take care when writing them, and use them to free people up rather than tie them down.

For fun, I thought I'd try to extract a small set of checklists for checklists.

what problem are you are trying to solve? (e.g. whose perception, desire, situation)
what kind of problem is it? (e.g. simple, complicated, complex)
what kind of list do you need? (e.g. doing, reviewing)
what kind of items do you want? (e.g. actions, communications)
what kind of triggers do you have? (e.g. start of a task, decision point, review of result)

can you identify any critical items? (keep them)
can you assume list users will just do any of the items? (remove them)
can you leave room for judgement? (probably a good idea)
can you simplify the language? (you probably can)
can you clarify the layout? (you probably can)

trial the list. (in real-world situations)
take feedback. (from everyone)
refine the list. (for the end users)
maintain the list. (because it must keep up with its context)
treat the list as a tool. (like any other)

And Karo has just started a discussion on the book over at The Club.

Image: Amazon

Comments

Unknown said…

Can you use your checklist to check you checklist of checklists?

May 8, 2018 at 10:12 AM

James Thomas said…

I'll have to check.

May 8, 2018 at 1:34 PM

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