wood versus trees
I am not a professional pilot - how do those of you who are - deal with the issue of distinguishing the wood from the trees in all this check, check, checking ?
I work in a safetly critical job (medicine) and have an ocean of SOP's to get through many times a day. Every time i take resonsibility for a patient and having gone through industry and company policies/SOP's - i then have my "own" checklist of killer items/gross checks to stop me doing something really stupid as i line up on the centreline. I also have training responsibilities and (quietly) try to impart some of this "supplementary" behaviour/paranoia to my younger colleagues.
Sometimes the biggest mistakes are the easiest to make (in an environment full of background noise, invented by A.N Other) like taking off and heading 020 instead of 200 - because no one told you to make sure the big yellow sun thing was in front of you rather than behind you (northern hemisphere !!).
Properly conducted 200 item checklists should work fine - but it's common for homo sapiens to see what they expect/want to see.
How do you stop extensive checking missing gross errors ? Nobody expects the spanish inquisition - but Cleese and Palin still turn up.
"aux vaches"
"correct patient, correct operation, oxygen flowing, ventilator on, chest moving, anaesthetic delivered and vital signs ok " (7 steps to avoid quadruple jeopardy !)