Heilmeier's Catechism

George Heilmeier, born in 1936, was an electrical engineer with Ph.D.s in solid state materials and electronics.  He spent most of the 1970s working at the Department of Defense at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and went on to work at and head several other companies such as Texas Instruments and Bellcore.  Heilmeier was awarded numerous prizes and awards from prestigeous science and engineering organizations and holds 15 patents.  He’s credited with being one of the pioneers to develop liquid crystal displays.

While George Heilmeier was indeed one of the brightest stars in the world of science and engineering in the second half of the 20th Century, he’s most well known for a set of criteria he developed for analyzing research projects and product development efforts.  Those criteria, know as Heilmeier’s Catechism, were aimed at project managers.  Heilmeier reckoned that any project manager should be able to answer these questions relating to project success before funding of the project or product would move forward.  The interesting thing about these criteria is that they can be applied to almost any kind of project, including starting a business.

Let’s look at the questions, and see how they might apply to starting or running a business:

• What are you trying to do? (Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.)
  Sounds like the beginnings of a business plan to me.  What are the goals and objectives of the company described in plain language.
• How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
  A SWOT analysis of your competition and industry will fulfull this question.
• What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
  Branding and a Marketing Plan are just the ticket to answer this question.
• Who cares?
  Who are your customers and what do they want.
• If you're successful, what difference will it make?
  What does it take to be successful and if you are, will you actually make any money.  It sounds like financial analysis to me.
• What are the risks and the payoffs?
  What are the assumptions that you used to build your financial statements and how conservative are your projections?
• How much will it cost?
  Have you done your cost analysis?
• How long will it take?
  A break-even analysis will answer this question.
• What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success.
  What a novel approach.  Let’s build in some early and mid-term success measures to make sure we’re on course to meet our plan objectives.

What we find is that Heilmeier’s Catechism is nothing more than standard business planning.  Perhaps it’s a ‘chicken or the egg’ issue; but really, who cares?  Heilmeier has applied common sense and standard business practices to the area of scientific inquiry.  And we can use his model to double check our plans to insure our business plans and projects are on track for success.