Controllers must master many skills to ensure career success. Things like risk management, the ability to anticipate challenges, and technological savvy are near the top of the list. However, soft skills, such as managing people and building a positive team culture, have never been more important.
Checklists externalize memory – they get the “dumb stuff” out of your head and free bandwidth for thinking, creativity, and judgment. Checklists are memory joggers that codify knowledge, clarify priorities, and provide a “cognitive net” to catch human errors resulting from failures of memory, attention, and thoroughness. Complexity is not routine, but checklists help make the management of complexity routine.