Book Review: The Checklist Manifesto

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Review by Laura

I’m not sure what I expected going into this book, but it wasn’t what I got out of it. As someone whose life runs on lists, I was already pretty convinced that I was going to agree with most of the content. What I hadn’t realised was that the book is more about practicalities and real life studies than it is about theory and principles.

For the squeamish, it’s worth noting that there are quite a few descriptions of medical procedures and emergencies, and I did find myself skimming some parts to avoid the gory details. Also, if you are a nervous flier, do not read this book, as there are some fairly detailed descriptions of emergencies involving aeroplanes.

Gawande very much holds up pilot as exemplars when it comes to safety and checklists, looking at how regulated flying is, and what other sectors could learn from them. He speaks to pilots and flight safety experts, learning how their checklists are put together, and drawing from them to create new checklists for surgery. Not to get all clickbaity about it, but the results are astonishing.

His great concern is patient safety, and that comes across throughout the book, as he never loses sight of the real people involved. It’s a very readable book, quick and easy to get through, if you don’t mind the occasionally terrifying description of how things can go very wrong, very quickly. What I found particularly interesting is that there are people who don’t like checklists, who see them as restrictive and stifling. For me, they’ve always been instinctive and immensely useful. Like lots of people, I have my ‘going out the door’ mantra of ‘phone, wallet, keys’ and my ‘trying to get home’ one of ‘computer, alarms, bag’. If you’re the kind of person who already likes lists, you’ll probably find some of the parts of the book so obvious, you’ll wonder why they needed stating. It’s also very affirming that our little recited lists are a genuinely useful tool.

Before we get too smug, though, it’s worth noting the amount of work Gawande and his team put into getting checklists right. If you spend your life with list after list, this is a really good reminder to think about the how as well as the what, and use some of his tips to get things in order.

Ultimately, for most of us, checklists aren’t a matter of life and death. Reading the story of the ones that are, and thinking about how the lessons learned might revolutionise, streamline and improve our lives is definitely an exercise worth carrying out.