American pilots landing complicated jet planes with all sorts of electronic systems on aircraft carriers reputedly have one simple check on a yellow sticky note stuck in front of them in the cockpit. It says: “Put the landing gear down”.
This is because with all the other complex things they have to manage, landing a small but very sophisticated plane on a moving runway in the middle of the sea, they had a history of crashing because they forgot to carry out one simple but very important and essential action.
Actually pilots are one of the professions which use checklists very effectively. I sat in the co-pilot seat of a Cessna light aircraft a few years ago flying from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and watched the pilot running through his pre flight checks which were very thorough and impressive.
However good and competent we may be as professionals I suggest that having and using check lists as aide memoires for tasks such as contract or business reviews or for project planning adds a degree of certainty and consistency.
Here’s a great quote I found on the subject from Atul Gwande an American surgeon and writer:
“Checklists turn out...to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains.”
Astronauts have to rely on checklists in the most stressful circumstances such as take off. Bert Rutan an American aerospace engineer said:
“A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut can't be creative. He has to follow a predetermined detailed checklist written by an engineer and if he gets a little creative he'll never fly again.”
So even if at first sight as professionals we might look down on such a practice and believe we are all infallible in our work, actually we are not, and having a means of verifying we are not forgetting some basic issue like lowering the landing gear enhances our ability rather than diminishing our professionalism.
This is because with all the other complex things they have to manage, landing a small but very sophisticated plane on a moving runway in the middle of the sea, they had a history of crashing because they forgot to carry out one simple but very important and essential action.
Actually pilots are one of the professions which use checklists very effectively. I sat in the co-pilot seat of a Cessna light aircraft a few years ago flying from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and watched the pilot running through his pre flight checks which were very thorough and impressive.
However good and competent we may be as professionals I suggest that having and using check lists as aide memoires for tasks such as contract or business reviews or for project planning adds a degree of certainty and consistency.
Here’s a great quote I found on the subject from Atul Gwande an American surgeon and writer:
“Checklists turn out...to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains.”
Astronauts have to rely on checklists in the most stressful circumstances such as take off. Bert Rutan an American aerospace engineer said:
“A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut can't be creative. He has to follow a predetermined detailed checklist written by an engineer and if he gets a little creative he'll never fly again.”
So even if at first sight as professionals we might look down on such a practice and believe we are all infallible in our work, actually we are not, and having a means of verifying we are not forgetting some basic issue like lowering the landing gear enhances our ability rather than diminishing our professionalism.
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