Checklist

 

Image from Pixabay

The holidays are just around the corner. The guest bed, which is here behind me, is slowly filling up with things that must be carried according to our extensive checklist. The car is shiny and polished in the garage, eager to go, knowing that it will already have a dirty face halfway through the first day of travel. But hey, you still want to leave in a clean car, don't you.

We are currently using version 21 of our checklist, so it is quite a mature document. And yet it is also very dynamic: every year we come up with something that should also be included, and we also delete items because we never need them anyway. The first stage of deletion is: we don’t need that on this trip. If this happens a few times, the item will disappear from the list for good. That happens a lot on the children’s list, but certainly also on the general list. The list also evolves with the way we go on holiday: we had a cottage-on-holiday-park phase, a mobile-home-on-camping phase, and now we're in the private-house-with-pool phase. Each phase brings with it its own need for stuff. Of course, there are also things that will always last, no matter what the holiday looks like. There is always a need for underwear.

Long before I related the term checklist to holidays, I already knew that pilots work with checklists. One for take-off, another for landing, and countless others for in between, including in case things go wrong. All those checklists should ensure that pilots do the right things in the right order. You would get such a big mess when a large Airbus is already on the ground and the gear still has to be lowered. Don't pilots know that themselves? Of course they do. And they certainly don't do the entire flight based on lists alone. But it does help them not to miss anything at the most exciting moments, when a lot has to be done and a lot can go wrong.

There is also a danger in such lists. Just as you used to know what the next song on the cassette would be (shuffle play was not possible on a sequential storage medium), you also know your checklists. That can put you on autopilot, assuming you do know. By the way, I have now left the cockpit at this point, because as far as I know the pilots in passenger aircraft always complete the checklist together, which considerably reduces the chance of taking shortcuts. Elsewhere, routine can indeed lead to mistakes. Once you've finished this blog, check out this video.

When I look at my own work, I also see a few checklists. Only then they are called SOPs – Standard Operating Procedures. They have a slightly different character than a real checklist. They are more like manuals, like: if you want to achieve that result, then you should do it in this manner. Convenient for new employees or for things you don't do that often, but also for tasks that consist of many or complex steps. Sometimes IT professionals find out too late that they should have done something. For example, this morning I had someone on the phone who reported that they had forgotten to perform a mandatory security test. Result: the plug was pulled for that application. A checklist could have prevented this.

Even for this blog I use a – modest – checklist. For example, it says that I have to check for certain spelling mistakes. I know Dutch rules like the back of my hand, but my fingers sometimes have a mind of their own when typing. And even though it's on my list that I should check for them, I sometimes manage to publish a blog with one of those mistakes. Fortunately, there is still an editorial team on the intranet, but that does not apply to the external publication. Which then results in a blush of shame on my cheeks. Any checklist only works if you use it properly.

And now it's time for the holiday checklist again!

The Security (b)log will return after the summer holidays.

 

And in the big bad world…

This section contains a selection of news articles I came across in the past week. Because the original version of this blog post is aimed at readers in the Netherlands, it contains some links to articles in Dutch. Where no language is indicated, the article is in English.

• the cloud cannot withstand the heat well.
• We are all quite concerned about cyber threats (if anyone asks). [DUTCH]
• local governments will soon be allowed to take decisions in online meetings. [DUTCH]
• China's cyber-espionage industry recruits university students to translate captured documents.
• the podcast 'Under the spell of Rian' highlights the life and work of this cybercharlatan. [DUTCH]
• Russia's digital war continues.
• ARTIS apparently has its security and continuity in order. [DUTCH]
• your Windows 11 account will be locked for ten minutes if you enter the wrong password too many times. [DUTCH]
• a Chinese GPS tracker might not be such a good idea after all. [DUTCH]
• you can transmit information from an infected air-gapped computer using the SATA cable as an antenna. [DUTCH]
• civil servants will receive a compulsory course in digital resilience. [DUTCH]