The inside of our new pub has been open for a week and with the whirlwind that comes with any opening abating slightly, it is now time to come back to one of my favourite topics, that of checklists.
We have a relatively green team and a checklist is one of the most effective ways to transfer years of knowledge and experience (mostly Aoife’s…) quickly and effectively.
A good checklist means you don’t have to think of what to do next – think Steve Jobs and Barak Obama wearing the same thing day in and day out. In addition to reducing decision fatigue, the job gets done to completion and it is a simple matter to hold someone to account. I have seen them used to set up a bar, plan a wedding, to mark progress in a project or to smooth the customer journey from the door to the table.
There are checklist apps, websites or the good old piece of paper, the method doesn’t matter as long as it is suited to your environment and team. After trialling them digitally at the pub, we are now printing them out on a daily basis and putting them on a clipboard for the team to complete.
Atul Gawande wrote the book on it The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande | Waterstones and Matthew Syed compares the medical and aviation industries (spoiler, one uses checklists) in Black Box Thinking, can recommend his other books too. https://www.matthewsyed.co.uk/books/