Heilmeyer's Catechism
When George Heilmeyer was the director of ARPA, he had a
standard set of questions he expected every proposal for a
new research program to answer. These have been called the
Heilmeyer Catechism. It'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:
1. What is the problem, why is it hard?
2. How is it solved today?
3. What is the new technical idea; why can we succeed now?
4. What is the impact if successful?
5. How will the program be organized?
6. How will intermediate results be generated?
7. How will you measure progress?
8. What will it cost?
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).
After leaving ARPA, Heilmeyer went on to head research departments at
TI, GE Aero, and Bellcore. (This version of Heilmeyer's Catechism was
adapted from one put online by Gio Wiederhold). |