How-to - Checklists

In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned the importance of writing down all the steps you perform as you progress through testing a new piece of software. I just found an old BEA Weblogic document, and at the end of it there was a checklist. I was so taken back by this simple type of document I had to write about it.

I was having a conversation with one of the contractors this morning and we were discussing the amount of bumff official documents have - you can write off the first 6 pages to indexes and official crap about target audience etc.

If the document is an instructional type then we may want to read all the additional info the first time, but we wont need it when we want to use it just for reference. In fact, this could hinder productivity. Instead, make it standard practice to include a checklist in the appendices outlining the instructions given in the document.

To make a checklist:

• Only have 3 columns - Requirement, Notes and a Completed checkbox.
• Requirements are triggers. Requirements should provide enough information to get the synapses in your brain firing and retrieving the memory of the additional information in the document.
• Notes provide additional info. This can be links to external resources or other parts of the document. Include gotchas here.
• Completed. As each task or step is actioned you can tick it off the list.

I'm sure you're reading this thinking "are you serious?", but as simple as this is, it's often the simple things that get forgotten about. The great thing about a checklist is, if you have followed the information I gave about making notes; this will take little extra effort to complete.

Here's a great example of how they can be used effectively: Weblogic- Deployment Checklists