I recently watched an interview with the author of a book called “The Checklist Manifesto” . More than a “to do” list, the checklist identifies all the steps and variables in a process to be checked.

Dr. Atul Gawande, a professor at Harvard Medical School, contends that for many tasks there are an abundance of details that are overlooked on any given day. The emphasis in the book was on the development of a safe surgery checklist which has been successfully applied with remarkable results in many leading hospitals. However, the author suggests that a master checklist can improve procedures in every industry. There are many identifiable stages in pool construction – as pool builders we would break our jobs down to a minimum of 15 separate phases each requiring specific attention to details. In the office there are monthly, quarterly and annual tax & insurance obligations; in sales there are advertising deadlines and budgets. Service companies need to head out on the route with everything they need for the day. Developing a comprehensive guide requires the end user to think through the tasks and will ultimately save time and money by reducing the need for backtracking and do-overs!