Table of Contents
Introduction
Recently, I saw a specific project from Lukeberry called “Como Debugar Frontend”, in English, it would be called “How to Debug Frontend”.
The UI behind this project is very simple, it’s just a list of checkboxes that you can follow to match your situation and validate that you are following the right steps to debug any issue that you could have through your front-end code. But, the idea behind this project is powerful: we are susceptible to failure, and we shouldn’t trust ourselves, instead, we should have a fault-tolerant system that can help us to trust in the process.
Why do checklists matter?
A checklist is a specific kind of list that we can use to validate if we are following the expected steps to do something. You can see through the entire internet a range of cases of usage of checklists, like those being applied to the aviation or medical fields.
In a scenario of stress or fatigue, you will be compromised by a decrease in your ability or cognitive functioning. The usage of a checklist will give you a way to “metavalidate” your capabilities and will let you reason about the the current state of the situation you are facing.
On “The checklist — a tool for error management and performance improvement”, the authors of the paper bring some interesting data related to the usage of checklists in some fields like aviation, medicine, and product manufacturing.
We even have a book called “The Checklist Manifesto”, that clarifies some ideas about the usage of checklists and the spread of the concept. I suggest you read it, also read the review from Murat Demirbas, it’s a great review that explains some ideas of the book too.
How can I create my checklist?
Now that you already know the importance of checklists to bring a better experience to your work, you, being an engineer (I suppose that you are one), do you agree that you should have a checklist for your daily work?
It will give you a documented, structured way to validate if some aspect or scope of your work is being followed as expected. It will help to bring clarification to your work in the future for yourself and for the team that will need to work with you.
So, which things from my work should have a checklist?
- A checklist for the feature that you are working on.
- A checklist with the step-by-step process to test a new feature.
- A checklist with the step-by-step process to release a new version of your product.
- A checklist with the step-by-step process to debug a feature, like the “Como Debugar Frontend”.
- A checklist with the playbook when you’re talking with a customer.
- A checklist with the presentation of your product for an internal team.
Those are just some examples of the things that you can have a checklist for. With that, you can validate the reality and check if it matches the expectations of the situation.
Conclusion
With that in mind, I hope that you can see how much valuable is to have a checklist for your daily work. You can apply this concept to everything that you do, even outside your work, like the way you talk with your customers.
I want to find some papers and articles that bring some data related to the usage of checklists and their reduction in incidents and errors. But, clearly is a good idea to have a checklist with yourself to guarantee a pragmatic approach to how you do your work, also it’s a way to reduce the noise from outside and focus on the important things.