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This Month's Tool: Check Sheet

Tool Purpose: The Check Sheet tool has multiple purposes. The first, is to capture the steps in a given process. The second is to capture any relevant data at the source. I.e. Monitoring and capturing the readings of meters. 

Applicable PMI Knowledge area/Process: Quality Management area / Execution & Control

Tool Description:

A check sheet is a document used for collecting data in real-time. When collecting this data in it's rawest form, it actually allows for deeper analysis to be performed on the information if required. For example, a water company has employees that go out and read the water meters at customer's homes to capture monthly water usage. While capturing this data, the employee logs the information directly onto the Check Sheet. Checks Sheets in recent years have moved to an electronic format, however manual Check Sheets are still utilized at some companies.

Another valuable use of Check Sheets is to utilize them for capturing step-by-step processes. For example, an airline pilot will use a Check Sheet. In this case, the Check Sheet has all the steps a pilot must perform prior to takeoff.

Regardless of the profession, there are hundreds of uses for Check Sheets on projects today.