There is a very thought provoking article on the Value of Checklists by Mary Abraham at Above and Beyond KM.  Mary's blog is excellent and I would highly recommend it for your RSS feeds.  This post talks about surgeons using checklists for both routine and complex tasks.

We had a new associate start today, and of course we have pulled the "new lateral hire" checklist out of our Library Procedures Manual to make sure we share all of the relevant need to know info as well as do all the preparatory steps to welcome a new person (personalize the sign out rotunda, get a Westlaw Canada password, etc.)

What about legal research checklists?  I admit, I fail miserably at using a checklist except for the brain stumper questions, even though there are good checklists available. We put checklists for research sources and noting up processes in the student's Head Start packages.  Is a checklist instructional material or is it something we SHOULD use as a practice tool?

I look forward to reading the comments!  Cheers, Shaunna (cross posted to my blog)