Yeah, we all pretty much agree, aviation checklists are good. It’s reasonable, it’s smart, it just plain makes sense. Conversely, most of us have seen Office Space (or, we got that memo) and agree that, never mind TPS reports themselves, TPS Cover Sheets are stupid mindless paperwork keeping us from just gettin’ on with our jobs! Most people probably have not actually dealt with a TPS Report, per se, but we’re familiar with the metaphor – stupid worthless paperwork.
So what am I getting at? Aviation Checklists and TPS Report Cover Sheets are really the same thing.
 |
 |
| Aviation Checklist (Yup, there’s an App for that!) | TPR Report Cover Sheet (did you get that memo?) |
The purpose of the aviation check list is pretty straight forward. To keep you un-deadified.The purpose of the TPS Cover is a little more convoluted, but it’s essentially a management checklist.
So how did the aviation checklist come into being? Did someone, one day, say for no reason “Let’s have a checklist. Yeah!”. No. First, somebody messed up. Bad. Then, people got together and had a meeting to discuss what went wrong and how to solve the problem.
A similar history lies behind much “mindless” paperwork similar to TPS Covers. A young or growing company, without the proper process or individual accountability, can turn a team of young, energetic, and enthusiastic recent college grads into a collection of sleep-deprived jaded suicidal alcoholics in mere days. After one, or more, projects have missed deadlines horribly, a meeting is called. In that meeting it’s asked “Why was the project so late? The original time line still looks reasonable – something went wrong. How can we fix this?”. The answer is often more process, more checklists, more paperwork.
So, TPS Cover Sheets are the end result of a project (or three) gone wrong. As much as a pain as they may be, they may actually be saving you from being driven into a jaded state of suicidal alcoholism. Conversely, there’s definitely the possibility that too much process and paperwork comes out of the meeting – perhaps an email to an email list for a memo for the coversheet for the tps report, which is ultimately for the test process for the actual product. There’s obviously a balance, but TPS Report Cover Sheets are probably not as bad as Peter Gibbons would have you believe. In the end – Damn, it feels good to be a gansta.
