Book description
This work offers a summary of the book "The Checklist
manifesto" by Atul Gawante. When solving problems, it's easy to get
caught up in the complexities whilst ignoring the obvious, simple
solutions. Atul Gawande suggests that every business sector can take
some tips from the commercial aviation industry's emphasis on
checklists: "Avoidable failures are common and persistent, not to
mention demoralizing and frustrating, across many fields… the volume and
complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to
deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both
saved us and burdened us. That means we need a different strategy for
overcoming failure… And there is such a strategy - though it will seem
almost ridiculous in its simplicity. It is a checklist." Atul
Gawande has case studies in both arenas to demonstrate its brilliant
commonsense. We have developed such sophisticated, complex systems, that
we cannot prevent error by memory alone. Despite the growth of
superspecialisation, steps are sometimes missed, which demonstrates that
problems often exist not because of a lack of knowledge, but just
because routine can create complacency. One especially compelling case
is the construction industry, which by using checklists has reduced
building failures to 0. 00002 percent: given such statistics, why would
any business not follow suit?
