How does your organization approach usability?

I have a good friend (my old college roommate, actually), who critiques my personal projects every once in awhile. He is a usability engineer at a large bank, and I'm constantly amazed at what kinds of things he catches/suggestions he makes. Back when I was in college, I always knew usability was important on some level, but I didn't really care all that much. These days, I've come to realize that a good usability expert is worth their weight in gold.

I have two parts to my question:

Does your organization have a team dedicated to usability? If so, how do they fit into your development process?
Can you recommend any usability "checklists" for software engineers who do not have access to usability experts to run through when developing UIs themselves? I googled the subject and found a few guides, but they were very long. I'm looking for something small, that I can tack to a tackboard and refer to without having to browse through an online book.

Solution

First - congratulations! You've come to realize what far too few project leaders realize - that usability is an extremely important aspect of software. If people don't want to use your software, or can't figure out how to use it, then all of its technical prowess means nothing. And if they don't love your software, they'll jump to the next best thing when it becomes available.

In my organization, we fluctuate from having a dedicated usability guru, to being very proactive about usability among our engineers. Having a leader with a sense for usability helps, even if he's not officially a UI guy.

I asked a similar question to yours, Easily digestable UI tips for developers. The answers there are probably what you're looking for.