The "checklist fallacy", on the dangers of checklists

As the quality conscious Product Managers we all are (right?) most of us have experience with long checklists of activities that are critical to have checked off before the launch of our product is allowed to proceed. Typically at some sort of launch review with wide participation from your organization.

As beneficial as these lists often are, there are inherent dangers in the use and interpretation of the results of a completed checklist that we need to consider when using them.

... and just for the record, my point is in no way that checklists are useless, they are a fundamental and natural part of every day work as Product Managers, but they need to be used with great care.

Let's start with a few thoughts about what a checklist really is: The whole point of a checklist is to "boil down complex thinking to a few points of evaluation". This means that a checklist is a summary of a lot of complex thinking and often a wide range of activities into one or a few points on a simple list. In other words: they are abstractions of complexity.

So to use checklists in meaningful way, there are at least two critical pre-requisites that you need to bear in mind:

1. Checklists can never substitute critical thinking. Even in the cases where "all lights are green" there can easily be important assumptions hidden in the checklist - hence always challenge assumptions for the marking of a point on the checklist. 
2. Always ensure you know who is responsible for checking the relevant point off on the checklist! It should never be anyone else but the person ultimately Accountable (refer to RACI) for the results. By that I mean that the Accountable person needs to represent the processes or people that have to live with the results of the delivery after launch. 

I know this might sound obvious to some, I actually hope so, but many of us have must likely experienced checklist "abuse" leading to, let's say un-intended results in unfortunate cases where the CYA potential of checklists makes the realisation of contingency plans very difficult. Why not try to be professional and consider this upfront instead? (and I'm not referring to the CYA part here).


Another perspective on the "checklist fallacy" is the relevance it has for KPI based management too ... but that's a different story.

I would love to hear from you if you have experiences with the "checklist fallacy"?