Beyond Agile (10/52): The Checklist Mindset
Today’s piece is a short one. This week was filled with family obligations so not enough time for thinking and writing but I wanted to stay committed to my goal to writing a new piece every week even if it is a short one.
Under Pressure
The greatest TPMs have this uncanny ability to execute calmly in pressure situations. They don’t miss a beat, stay focused, and get the teams across the finish line.
Either it was the years of experience dealing with such situations or they had some sort of magic mantra, a special talent, or mechanism.
What they actually had was a very heightened self awareness about all things they did to find patterns that they then codified into these repeatable mental lists.
Let me introduce you to The Checklist Mindset.
The Checklist Mindset
All complex systems or human actions are at the core a series of routines consisting of simple steps repeated in a sequence over time.
Understanding this truth allows you to leverage the checklist mindset which can be more powerful than any complex productivity tool.
You probably already do this without realizing throughout your day:
you read a long email before hitting send 5 times looking to make sure your message lands.
you setup the same documentation structure for every project you do.
your morning routine of checking and prioritizing emails.
how you deal with emails or slack messages in general.
when you build hardware schedules.
you make sure critical milestones don’t land on friday.
you make sure every ticket in jira has an acceptance criteria.
Hospitals, airline pilots, nuclear power plants, rocket launches, retail stores, software development, every complex operation uses checklists for performance, productivity, or safety reasons.
As TPMs, we operate in pressure environments that require us to deal with vast amounts of information flows, massively cross-functional projects, complex people yet expected to be on top of it all.
Here is how you can use the Checklist Mindset to win at this game of pressure.
Building Your Own Checklist Library
Think about your most stressful moments during previous complex projects.
Think about the most common routines that you do during the work days that sometimes slip your mind - that weekly status report, sharing the meeting minutes, project requirements, etc..
Now...
1️⃣ Evaluate how you handled those situations or what the steps you took.
2️⃣ Codify those into a simple checklist
3️⃣ Start building a library of checklists in a search format with unique routine names.
4️⃣ Take it one step further and start setting reminders to execute certain checklists instead of separate to do lists items.
Further Reading
Dr Atul Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto is one of those books that had a large profound impact on me. I recommend this book to all leaders (PMs, TPMs, Eng Leaders, everyone). It shows the powerful impact something as simple as a checklist can have on productivity, performance, safety, and beyond.
What mental routines or checklist do you go through on a daily basis without realizing that you could codify? I wonder how big your Personal Routine Library is.
I would love to hear from you on this number in your library.
Until next time 👋.
-Aadil
Feedback on this week’s newsletter?
Great points! What tool are you using to keep track of checklists? How do you share them with your team to tick off?
Thanks,
Max