A B737-800 crew became distracted during pushback and engine start by ATC changing the runway and de...

Narrative:

Not late-not in a hurry. Right at pushback we got the runway and departure change. During engine start first officer grabbed the performance computer and began programming changes. Then we got a pre-taxi ATC call about construction issue near our gate. While stopped; I decided to go through the runway taxi and departure changes and went into departure takeoff mode. Out of sequence now; I inadvertently overlooked the before taxi checklist before taxiing. During taxi we both knew we were out of sequence; so I said I wanted to re-review the departure and performance data. That's when the first officer noticed the flaps at 0 and instinctively grabbed the handle and set to five. So flaps were reset on the move. We then re-ran the before taxi checklist and reconfirmed all configure/takeoff and departure items. I should not have allowed first officer to begin performance computer changes during pushback. I should have waited until after the before taxi checklist was completed prior to addressing the clearance changes. I normally am very sequence oriented but I let the combination of clearances and extra ATC chatter and performance programming knock me out of sequence.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737-800 crew became distracted during pushback and engine start by ATC changing the runway and departure. While recalculating performance data the First Officer failed to lower flaps which the crew discovered when the Taxi Checklist was reviewed during taxi.

Narrative: Not late-not in a hurry. Right at pushback we got the runway and departure change. During engine start First Officer grabbed the performance computer and began programming changes. Then we got a pre-taxi ATC call about construction issue near our gate. While stopped; I decided to go through the runway taxi and departure changes and went into departure takeoff mode. Out of sequence now; I inadvertently overlooked the Before Taxi checklist before taxiing. During taxi we both knew we were out of sequence; so I said I wanted to re-review the departure and performance data. That's when the First Officer noticed the flaps at 0 and instinctively grabbed the handle and set to five. So flaps were reset on the move. We then re-ran the Before Taxi checklist and reconfirmed all configure/takeoff and departure items. I should not have allowed First Officer to begin performance computer changes during pushback. I should have waited until after the Before Taxi checklist was completed prior to addressing the clearance changes. I normally am very sequence oriented but I let the combination of clearances and extra ATC chatter and performance programming knock me out of sequence.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1203033
Time
Date	201409
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737-800
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Checklists
Person 1
Function	Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 131
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

A B737-800 crew became distracted during pushback and engine start by ATC changing the runway and departure. While recalculating performance data the first officer failed to lower flaps which the crew discovered when the taxi checklist was reviewed during taxi.