Do cheklists replace regulations?

At work, I had to implement project management in one large and soft, in terms of management, company. I “broke” the old ones and tried to start new business processes. I wrote the rules, made people assessments in motivational matrices.
The CEO signed orders that almost no one followed. I involved the company tops in the process, but they did not find the time to look at one or another document. Some project managers sincerely wanted to live by the new rules, but did not understand them. I tried to make the documents as simple and understandable as possible, but this did not produce results.

I realized that a regulation is a boring document that is interesting only to me, a meticulous understanding of the regulation requires special perseverance, desire and an inquisitive mindset. An order, document or other block of text cannot be a tool explaining and propagating the rules of life. Dry text cannot inspire, and creative text is unacceptable in a corporate environment.

Then I decided to replace the regulations with checklists. Checklists helped a person not to forget about the most important at some stage, but did not give an understanding of the process as a whole. Checklists could not describe business processes, and this was exactly what was needed.

Then I went for an experiment and combined the description of the business process and the usual flat checklist. One of the managers called this method the Moscow metro, I called it a test flow or process.

I broke my requirements for project managers at each stage in the form of hierarchical checklists and designed it in the form of a tree diagram. It turned out a kind of decomposition of checklists for the important stages of the project.

Each manager could see all the requirements on one A4 sheet and use this tool in his daily work.

By checkboxes I designated the steps that must be completed. If the check-boxes had numbers, this meant that the actions needed to be performed in that order.



If there were no numbers, then the manager had to perform all the steps on the branch, but the sequence did not matter.



If I wanted to indicate optional steps or tools that can be used, then I designated them with a dot on the checklist line.



Later I began to add radio sticks so that I could branch out checklists depending on conditions. In my case, such a condition was most often the type of project: typical or unique (as we called it)

Branches moving away from the root check-lists were decomposed, as it were, the check-list and at a lower level explained what to do.



Surprisingly, this form has become quite understandable for most project and management managers. One glance was enough to understand the requirements and the process as a whole. The printed version of the checklist gave the head a tool of self-control. A person could tick off steps taken, as in a regular check list.

Aligning project management processes with top management has also become easier. We just agreed on the checklist, and the regulations didn’t interest anyone. They limited themselves to a line like: "The project manager must comply with the requirements of the project management checklist."

Later I realized that I could use this tool for personal purposes. I read quite a lot of business books and used to use mindmaps to structure new methods. But mindmaps don't help visualize process changes. When you read the book, you want to change your principles of action in a particular area, do not forget to take important steps that you did not take before.



I started using test flows (graphic checklists) to change the principles of my work in a particular area and, in my opinion, this is a fairly suitable tool. After reading the book, I formulate new rules for myself in the form of a checklist, then I share these rules with people whose opinion is important to me. I send them a streaming checklist and say something like: “Hey, what do you think if I act like this in such situations?” I get feedback and, surprisingly, there are no questions about what this thing is and how to understand it.

Here is such a thorny successful experience! How did you cope with such tasks? Believe in the efficiency of documents !?