Wednesday in the Woods 013: Checklist or Wrecklist?  Does naughty or nice suffice?
Channel: Licensio, LLC
Date: 2021-12-22

I was really hoping to bring you a video this week, but a farm elf jumped the fence and I spent all solstice looking for him.  Reminds me of the time, nearly 20 years ago, when I had to shake out my /boot partition looking for ELF files when the x86 Linux kernel first switched.  Like real elves, their compressed size often helps them slip through the cracks.

Anyway, I never did find the elf, but he did send us a video as he escaped on a farm vehicle.  It’s a short one, but he seems to be trying to impart some wisdom related to checklists.  For us, checklists normally come up in situations like software releases, audits, or M&A diligence.  In these situations, things like QA processes or controls in ISO27001 naturally lend themselves to bulleted lists and spreadsheets.

But, as the elf implores us, it’s important to balance these checklists with a healthy dose of common sense and gut instinct.  Checklists are great at helping ensure that we don’t forget something or follow the wrong sequence, but they aren’t a guarantee that you’ve done a good job.

Think about it like the difference between “necessary” and “sufficient” in #logic or #math.  

Necessary is something that you have to do in order to “do a good job.”  If you skip it, you’re setting yourself up for failure.  For example, if you’re going to bake some bread, you’ve got to have some kind of flour.

But in order to produce a good outcome, you need to focus on more than just necessary - you need to focus on sufficient.  Sufficient is about what actually - big picture, holistically - creates what you want to happen.  

Thinking about sufficiency helps us think backwards from desired state to current state.  It helps us identify unknowns that were unconsidered. It helps us connect related or contextual knowledge that wasn’t contemplated when an abstract list was constructed. And often, it helps us think creatively about solving the problem instead of simply repeating the past.

My check list now includes shutting the gate and making sure the elf fencing is hot before closing up for the night.  And I think I’ll pick up a higher-resolution infrared drone to help track the strays down.  My old Parrot doesn’t quite have the FLIR detail to pick up the little guy as he flew off.

Hope you all enjoyed the solstice and whatever else you may be celebrating this year.  Stay warm and stay healthy!

#checklists #risk #riskmanagement #compliance #audit #diligence #qa #linux #elf #winter #holidays #happyholidays #merrychristmas #xmas