When we arrived at the Archive today, the equipment Bennett ordered from Mumbai had finally been delivered: a color matching chart, lighting reflectors, diffusion, even a Leatherman (one of those multipurpose tools, like a Swiss Army Knife for tough guys).
In pre-preparation for the upcoming teaching at TCV, Bennett had the staff put together a camera checklist to review before going out into the field.
The Archive makes a lot of ID cards for Namgyal monks, so the guys got ambitious and laminated it.
Bennett works in movie production, where the stakes are high and checklists are not uncommon. But even in the editorial team I worked on last year, checklists came in really handy.
The two hardest things about checklists are knowing what to put on them (which can only come from experience and making mistakes) and having the discipline to follow them.
I did not expect to be spending a significant part of my time as a Harvard surgeon worrying about checklists… and yet what we found were that these were tools to help make experts better… this was bigger than a drug.
…
Just using a checklist requires you to embrace different values from ones we’ve had, like humility, discipline, teamwork.
Of course, checklists can easily become the agents of stubborn, bureaucratic evil, so it’s important to review and revise checklists often. And invest in your own lamination machine.