What entrepreneurs can learn from checklists that are saving millions of lives

Industries and services we use daily in our life such as airlines, power plants,manufacturing industries and construction has tremendous hazards, from minor injuries to costing thousands of lives.

But how do they manage to step away from danger and executing things very well. Are they well trained or experienced?

Nope, even an intelligent, skillful professionals like doctors and engineers happen to commit mistakes due to ignorance, while monotonous process. They are avoidable errors, hence it would result in huge impact on efficiency and reduced loss of lives and money.

So, as Entrepreneurs what we can learn from checklists and start building a business system that operates by it own

A checklist is a established higher standard of baseline performance.

Checklists can help with memory recall and clearly set out minimum steps necessary in a process. Good checklists are explicit. They offer possibility of verification but also instill discipline of higher performance.

An effective checklist is

• simple step by step instruction
• Practical
• To the point

An ineffective checklist:

• too long/hard to use
• try to spell out every step
• turns brains off
• vague and imprecise

Types:

DO-CONFIRM — Checks after tasks are done, often done separately by different team members

READ-DO: Carry out tasks as they are checked off

Rules:

Checklist cannot be lengthy. Rule of thumb: 5–9 items.Depends on context/situation. After 60–90 seconds checklist becomes a distraction, people begin short cutting.

Wording: simple and exact, familiar to profession

Look matters: ideally fits on one page, free from clutter, unnecessary colors, use upper and lower case for ease of reading, maybe sans serif like Helvetica.

Test in real world and simulate. Checklists should and can be modified to fit local procedures, processes and language.

A book of checklists is called a manual

THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO : How to Get Things Right is a book written by Atul Gawande a chief surgeon, who helped to reduce errors during operations and saved thousands of lives by creating a checklist for critical stages.