Saving Time and Improving Software Quality Using Checklists

For decades, the “best practice” for developing high-quality, low-defect software has been to devise a detailed “software development plan” and then generate mountains of paperwork to go with the software. The space shuttle flight software is built this way, for example. The result is highly reliable software, but the practice is slow, expensive, stifles innovation, and most programmers hate it.

It does not have to be this way.

We argue that prolix software development plans can usually be replaced by a handful of simple checklists that result in improved software quality and reduced total development time. The trick is in getting the checklists right. A good checklist can work wonders, but a bad checklist can be worse than no checklist at all.

Topics covered in this presentation include:

• How checklists benefit other endeavors (aviation, medicine, heavy industries, etc.)
• Differences between a good and a bad checklist.
• Benefits and limitations of checklists.
• How to create good checklists.
• Real-world examples of checklists in use on open-source projects.
• How to convince your developers to actually use your checklists.