The Checklist Manifesto : How to Get Things Right

English language

Published April 28, 2009

ISBN:: 978-0-670-08440-1

(1 review)

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right is a 2009 non-fiction book by Atul Gawande. It was released on December 22, 2009, through Metropolitan Books and focuses on the use of checklists in relation to several elements of daily and professional life. The book looks at the use of checklists in the business world and the medical profession, with Gawande examining how it could be used for greater efficiency, consistency and safety. Gawande stated he was inspired to write The Checklist Manifesto after reading a story about a young child who survived a fall into a frozen pond and discovering the physician who saved her relied heavily on checklists.Critical reception for the book has been mostly positive, with Newsday calling it "thoughtfully written". The Seattle Times also gave a positive review.

3 editions

technicat@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Really important read, put it on your list

5 stars

This is a must-read for anyone facing point of no return situations, and not even life or death cases as discussed in the book like surgery (with personal experience from the author) and aviation (the inspiration for applying checklists to surgery). Even in software, where we now take for granted checklists of the automated kind, obviously there are cases of bad releases, bad deployments, and bad ideas (and actually, some of those could kill people). Like anything else, the idea can be used badly (I've had a manager use a checklist as a power trip tool), but at its most effective it changes culture so that teams (not just a lone hero as, the book points out, the press tends to highlight, because hey great teamwork doesn't make headlines) know what to do in an emergency and better yet, avoids them.