

Thanks to science, a lot of what we do has a rational explanation, so ignorance doesn’t count most of the time. What the philosophers, Samuel Gorowitz and Alasdair MacIntyre, were trying to get at are the two reasons for human error: ignorance and ineptitude. Much of the world and universe is-and will remain-outside our understanding and control. Even enhanced by technology, our physical and mental powers are limited. Some things we want to do are simply beyond our capacity. The Checklist Manifesto quotes this enlightening passage: In the opening chapter of The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande explains exactly why checklists are necessary with information from a pair of 1970s philosophers writing in an essay that has been given new life thanks to the book.īased in Gawande’s familiar territory, medicine, the essay, Toward a Theory of Medical Fallability, is an application of classical philosophical concepts for the modern world. The Philosophy of ChecklistsĪfter using Process Street for pre-publishing and content promotion checklists, it’s not like I need convincing how useful they are.
#Checklist manifesto simulator
Trying not ‘seem like a kid who’d just been offered a chance to go up to the front of the plane and see the cockpit’, Gawande accepts the invitation to go into a complex Boeing flight simulator (with every airport in the world loaded into it) to try checklists in action.ĭespite the safe simulator, the realism left his heart racing after a session of probably the most fun research ever. Good checklists are, above all, practical. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps-the ones that even the highly skilled professionals using them could miss. They do not try to spell out everything-a checklist cannot fly a plane. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They turn people’s brains off rather than turn them on. They treat the people using the tools as dumb and try to spell out every single step. They are made by desk jockeys with no awareness of the situations in which they are to be deployed.

They are too long they are hard to use they are impractical. There are good checklists and bad, Boorman explained.
#Checklist manifesto how to
It won’t come as a surprise that a man like that had a thing or two to say about how to create an effective checklist. Taking inspiration from the flight checklists introduced for pilots in World War II, Gawande spoke to Daniel Boorman, an electronic checklist procedure manager at Boeing. Interview with a Veteran Checklist Writer The Checklist Manifesto is the story of how this simple checklist was made. For him, however, it’s vitally important. And Gawande himself, like every human being with a will to survive, is no stranger to risk reduction. All the people in the book have something in common – they want to reduce risk. He interviews professionals from the man responsible for foolproof checklists given to pilots flying incredibly complex Boeing airplanes to a group of high-powered venture capitalists.
#Checklist manifesto full
The book is packed full of useful knowledge, and not just from the author himself. The most useful Checklist Manifesto quotesĪfter publishing the Checklist Manifesto Review and following up with the Checklist Manifesto Summary, I thought it’d be fun to share the most memorable The Checklist Manifesto quotes by surgeon Atul Gawande.
