Over the past years, the NTSB and its sister organizations were very concerned about how flight check-lists were used, or not used in order to prevent their misuse and therefore prevent airplane crashes.

Registrars and accreditation bodies need to be concerned about the same issue.   Audit check-lists tend to be a hamlet-like dilemma: either they are too strict, that is, they practically repeat the Standard’s sentences, or they are too slack, making the auditor fill out blank pages based on his or her memories and imagination.

Certainly, in high-risk tasks, like space flights, war flights, high-risk plants, check-lists are generally taken very seriously, though the critical issues keep being the same:

• Language
• Length of checks
• Interruptions

And – why not? – also motivational factors.  Let’s face it honestly, following any check-list is a very boring affair, unless you fully trust it as a very efficient risk-preventing tool.

CHECKLISTS EFFECTIVENESS
Any one of these issues – or any combination of them – can lead to poor use or even misuse of check-lists, making them practically un-effective; or even misleading.

Flight check-lists and their similes, focus on control checks.  And by control I do not mean regulation or set-up, but just simple answers to the question that the check-lister asks about the system: are you in place or not or do you work or not?

Then, it is left to the check-lister, in case the system’s answer is negative, to look for an effective and quick solution.

Audit check-lists – though much less risky, at least for immediate counter-measures – are much more complicated.  When strictly standards-based, they mislead the auditor to ask for the same questions posed by the Standard, not allowing for interpretation, adaptation and implementation by the auditee.

Up to now, we have considered what I like to define as passive check-lists, that is, control and audit check-lists.

In other words, they only consider things that have been done just like as when you read the speed of the car you are driving.

But why do you drive at that speed?

ACTIVE CHECKLISTS
What about active check-lists, therefore?

For instance those that we should develop and use when planning, developing, testing – and validating – our R&D process and its output?

These are certainly the hardest to be done.  While (passive) controls and audits are based on known and available information, when we think of R&D check-lists, we have to consider – very carefully – that we start walking on unknown ground.

Though R&D check-lists are the most difficult to be developed and implemented, we have no choice.  They are the basics of any process – and, therefore, of any control or audit check-list.

No control or audit check-list can therefore be effective unless it based on a process that has been developed based on a sound R&D check-list.

It is far too easy – and disputable – for an audit check-list re-phrase the standard’s clauses.  The same applies to control check-lists.  All too often they become routine.  The check-listers lose sight and awareness of the meaning of the operations it is their duty to check.

Memory is certainly one of the most important of man’s resources.  But when it comes to  control a number of complex and critical operations, memory can fail for a number of reasons.

Documented check-lists – when properly designed and used – are effective tools to prevent mishaps.

If my experience with check-lists had been satisfactory, I would not be writing these lines.

We tend to focus on the check-lists much more than their design and use.  We tend to use check-lists as “shopping lists”, that are just lists of items that we take out of the shelves and put into our cart.

But this is not the right way of developing and using audit check-lists.

Years ago, some auditor communities intensively debated the value of virtual audits or remotely-conducted audits that were thought to be feasible based on Internet communication tools.

That was a period when auditors intensively travelled the world conducting ISO audits.  They soon got very tired and also had to improvise using their Registrar’s check-list, since the auditees were completely unknown to them.

The idea of virtual audits seems to have been abandoned.   I find it sad that in a world that goes more and more virtual that virtual training is an accepted fact and system, so why not check-list controlling and auditing?

We now have to use our available tools to implement and improve our risk-prevention processes.  And check-listing is a key one we need to improve for ISO 9001:2015.