Checklists

Yes, yes, I know this is a knitting blog. Bear with me for a minute.

I’m currently reading The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. It’s the third of three fabulous books by author Atul Gawande, a surgeon. His previous books, Better and Complications, explore the question of why things go wrong, despite the extensive training and best efforts of the people involved. The Checklist Manifesto takes the next step, and explores a simple tool for managing complex tasks and minimizing goofs: checklists.

Used in airplane cockpits, on construction sites, and—increasingly—in hospitals, a good checklist is a short list of must-do tasks that even the most experienced people occasionally forget to perform. Each task is stated clearly and succinctly. By acting as a series of quick reminders—not as a comprehensive set of how-to instructions—the checklist greatly increases the likelihood of quality output.

Here’s where we get back to knitting.

Until recently, I used to do a fair amount of work as a tech editor, reviewing patterns and books to ensure they were clear, concise, consistent, complete, and correct. I never used a formal checklist. Oh, sure, sometimes I’d have on hand a style guide, a document explaining how the patterns were to be presented: with what punctuation and phrasing, in what sections, with what goals, etc. I would refer back to the style guide when I needed to remember, say, whether the client preferred “needles” or “ndls.” And I had mental checklists, slightly different for each client, with tasks like “check abbreviations list” and “ensure stitch counts are multiple of stitch pattern.” But who’s to say I didn’t miss a step, here and there?

I’m a big believer in style guides. (The one I use for my own patterns is currently four pages long.) But now I’m thinking checklists would be a dandy idea too.

• «Previous Post
• Next Post »