By Lisa Lavender M.T.R., M.F.S.R., M.W.R.
Photo credit: eyfoto / iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images
May 8, 2023
For nearly 23 years in the
industry, I have been making lists. All kinds of lists: supply lists, task
lists, inspection lists, to-do lists, lists of lists that need to be made.
After all these years, I am still making lists but with new eyes, knowledge,
skills, and inspiration.
Over the years, I had moments of
frustration and thought, “no more lists!” I have had a few rants: “Do not make
another list because I probably already made it!” I have pondered the use of
lists after they were made. Some of the lists fall into the category of “they
don’t work if we don’t use it.”
If you are in this industry, you
likely use a list, made a list, planned to make a list, or want a list. You may
have experienced some list frustration. Where does our list passion come from?
I have had the opportunity to have some great collaborative conversations with
some of my restoration friends, and during one conversation I was referred to
the book, The Checklist Manifesto, How to Get things Right, Autl Gawande.
The following book review gave me goosebumps: “An electrifying manifesto that
pairs the most advanced medical science with the humblest of tools: the
checklist….” Donna Seaman, Booklist. The title alone tells us
where our list passion is found, “How to Get things Right.” Summary:
“…Atul Gawande makes a compelling argument that we can do better, using the
simplest of methods: the checklist….how they could bring about striking improvements
in a variety of fields, from medicine and disaster recovery to professions and
businesses of all kinds…”
Lists are widely adopted tools in
many sectors and well-developed, accessible lists can be valuable job aids that help our teams succeed and improve our
operational outcomes. I am always inspired by my military veteran restoration
friends. Not only is their service to our country an inspiration but also the
experiences, ideas and strategies from their military background being applied
to restoration operations.
I asked a process-driven military
veteran and restoration business owner who I admire to share his thoughts on
lists. Chris Sanford, MBA, Navy Veteran Business Owner, PuroClean Disaster
Restoration Services:
“I believe lists are critical to
help prioritize and maximize what one can accomplish in a defined period of
time. For more than 23 years in the Navy while on active duty and now in the reserves,
I have kept a “wheel book,” aka notebook, by my side or on my person and each
one is filled with a list of tasks for each day. I’ve broken pages up into
tasks for me, emails to write, calls to make, and tasks to assign. I also use
different color pens to differentiate normal vs urgent tasks. I’ve tried
different digital solutions, but haven’t been able to switch over completely.
Bottom line: every successful officer I have met in
the military uses lists extensively to ensure nothing slips through the cracks. I
also appreciate a good checklist, which is a specific type of list that can be
a template used to perform a routine task without missing a step over and over,
or a one-time-use checklist for a specific event or project. If you are really
into lists for larger events and projects, Google “Plan of Action and Milestones (POAM),” it’s a list on
steroids. . .the military loves lists! I have incorporated this into my
business and encourage our staff to use both task lists, reminder lists, and
checklists each and every day.”
If you have struggled to make
lists to serve as job aids, you are not alone. As you read The Checklist
Manifesto, you will gain valuable insight and knowledge regarding the use of
lists, the expertise, and the development process. Today, I collaborate with
our teams to make job aids to use in our own operations, as training tools, and
for the restorers we serve. Below is a glimpse of the variety of efforts which
also resulted in our internal joke of making things simple is not so
simple.
Why is it so hard? It is a
discipline with a series of best practices. This is important because the
reality is all job aids, lists, are not created equally. I dug into the
archives and as a young restoration company operator, I found my documents that
were meant to be job aids were wordy documents that ranged from 300- to
1,000-word, single spaced, documents. This was the source of the problem. This
was not an effective approach to giving the tools to the team that I was trying
to create. They would be fine in a comprehensive manual but not serve as job
aids. Here are a few tips (checklist) to help you develop and/or implement
lists as job aids.
May using lists bring you much
Restoring Success.
KEYWORDS: employee training how to increase restoration business management success