According to Atul Gawande:
The primary aim of a checklist is to prevent human failure, either from ignorance (you don't know what you don't know) or ineptitude (knowledge is applied inconsistently or incorrectly).
The secondary aim of a checklist is to force people to talk to each other and foster teamwork. This is known as "activation phenomenon": giving people a chance to say something at the start of a procedure seems to activate their sense of participation and responsibility and their willingness to speak up.
- Define clear pause point at which the checklist is supposed to be used.