John Gillies is the Director of Practice Support at Cassels Brock. In this role, he collaborates with all firm members with a view to enhancing the culture of knowledge sharing through building appropriate organizational and technical structures to support the capture and dissemination of knowledge.
In The Checklist Manifesto, Dr. Atul Gawande examines how the use of checklists can significantly improve workflows and outcomes in the work environment. He focuses primarily on the aviation and construction industries, and analyzes where and how checklists are used. He speaks as well about his experience in a WHO-sponsored initiative bringing checklists to surgical operating theatres around the world. There are, I believe, possible applications of his ideas within a law firm.
[Dr. Gawande is a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and leads the World Health Organization’s Safe Surgery Saves Lives program. He is also the author of two other books, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance and Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science", and is a staff writer for The New Yorker. The genesis for his book was an article on checklists in The New Yorker in December 2007].
Dr. Gawande examines in some detail the genesis of checklists in the aviation industry, a major result of which is the incredible safety record that the industry enjoys, despite the obvious complexity involved in any flight.
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