{"id":307,"date":"2014-05-25T11:18:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-25T11:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/?page_id=307"},"modified":"2014-05-25T11:19:15","modified_gmt":"2014-05-25T11:19:15","slug":"heilmeiers-catechism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/entreprenuership\/heilmeiers-catechism","title":{"rendered":"Heilmeier\u2019s Catechism"},"content":{"rendered":"<table width=\"75%\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"1\" cellpadding=\"1\" align=\"center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<h2>Heilmeier&#8217;s Catechism<\/h2>\n<p>When George Heilmeier was the director of ARPA in the mid 1970s, he had a standard set of questions he expected every proposal for a new research program to answer. These have been called the Heilmeier Catechism. It&#8217;s a good exercise to answer these questions for an individual research project, too, both for yourself and as a way to convey to others what you hope to accomplish. So here they are:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>1. What is the problem, why is it hard?<br \/>\n2. How is it solved today?<br \/>\n3. What is the new technical idea; why can we succeed now?<br \/>\n4. What is the impact if successful?<br \/>\n5. How will the program be organized?<br \/>\n6. How will intermediate results be generated?<br \/>\n7. How will you measure progress?<br \/>\n8. What will it cost?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, if you are proposing a small effort, like a class project or MS thesis, some of these questions should be adapted and modified (e.g., #5 and #8)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>George H. Heilmeier,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.<\/li>\n<li>How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?<\/li>\n<li>What&#8217;s new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?<\/li>\n<li>Who cares? If you&#8217;re successful, what difference will it make?<\/li>\n<li>What are the risks and the payoffs?<\/li>\n<li>How much will it cost? How long will it take?<\/li>\n<li>What are the midterm and final &#8220;exams&#8221; to check for success?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"twttr_buttons\"><div class=\"twttr_twitter\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?text=Heilmeier%E2%80%99s+Catechism\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-via=\"\" data-hashtags=\"\"  data-size=\"default\" data-url=\"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/entreprenuership\/heilmeiers-catechism\"  data-related=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><div class=\"twttr_followme\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shiranjit\" class=\"twitter-follow-button\" data-size=\"default\"  data-show-screen-name=\"false\"  target=\"_blank\">Follow me<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heilmeier&#8217;s Catechism When George Heilmeier was the director of ARPA in the mid 1970s, he had a standard set of questions he expected every proposal for a new research program to answer. These have been called the Heilmeier Catechism. It&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/entreprenuership\/heilmeiers-catechism\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":163,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-307","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/307\/revisions\/309"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shirishranjit.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}