The Heilmeier Catechism (1977) | Hacker News Reader

The Heilmeier Catechism (1977)

darpa.mil

97 pointsrfreytag19 comments

I think everyone can learn from "Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon."

I love this fact very much. Jargon is necessary when publishing scientific papers or presenting technical material. When it comes to marketing, the moment there is jargon - I smell bullshit (even if it isn't). Honest, truthful marketing is so much more valuable and impactful. Reminds of the stark difference between how Steve Jobs spoke and how Satya Nadella speaks. Every time I hear Satya, I feel like I am listening to a pre-recorded HR blessed robot.

"Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon."

DARPA did adhere to that back then. I was doing networking work during that period. And at a networking conference, one DARPA staffer asked me what I thought of a theoretical paper on Internet congestion control. I said "I've read it, but I don't understand it." They replied "We don't understand it either. That's why we're not funding them any more."

Jargon are just words, abstractions. I mean, even the term HR is considered a jargon term if you aren’t familiar with the concept.

Nadella isn’t speaking to you, but to a bunch of shareholders, his messaging is extremely optimized for that target audience (I learned this when working for MS). Likewise, Jobs was talking to you, his messaging was similarly optimized to a different audience.

Yes, jargon is just words. But words can clarify or confuse, enlighten or darken, convey truth or lies, exaggerate or be accurate.

As someone famous once said, “if you can’t explain it so your grandmother gets it, then you don’t understand it.”

Just because you don’t doesn’t mean you can’t. Again, you speak and explain for your intended audience, who is often not your grandma.

I think that good researchers and engineers already ask themselves some form or subset of these questions but I'm perhaps somewhat morbidly curious about those who don't even consider the heart of what these questions beg at when approaching a project.

So many people doing research or building software which is doomed to crash headlong into a fundamental problems that everyone else saw coming.

Most software is not 'research' it's just 'building stuff'. Like an accounts payable portal. Or script to analyze and process support calls. Or to manage sales relationships.

And that type of project has its own set of fundamental problems to consider.

"Catechism" --- not a word one regularly encounters these days. I've seen it used most commonly in late 19th/early 20th century books. One recent example:

https://archive.org/details/newcatechismele01hawkgoog

I thought of the catechism of the catholic church.

Indeed, and the published Catechism that I've seen is presented in a question-and-answer format, so maybe that's why this thing is called a "catechism" as well.

Q&A format is not an uncommon one for catechisms, but not normative. The two universal catechisms of the Catholic Church (the first finalized in 1566, the second in 1997) do not employ such a format:

(1566) https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015038914233;vi...

(1997) http://scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc.htm

The word "catechism" is ultimately derived from the Greek word κατηχήθης (transliterated — katécheó), meaning "instruction". See Luke 1:4:

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/apostolic/luke/1.htm

I guess that's mostly because Latin and Ancient Greek fell out of fashion: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/catechism

It definitely is still used a lot in its German form "Katechismus" by obedient Christians and I would expect a similar use in English.

I have used this at work for many, many years to answer questions about projects. Until very recently, I would basically use it kind of indirectly so that people wouldn't catch on and realize I was repeating myself, but I actually think that is a good thing and have stopped even trying to mask it.

I feel like this is missing from many of the most important projects (especially big government projects, e.g. war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terror, inner city education). I’d like to see an honest application on these points. Especially,

> What are the mid-term and final “exams” to check for success?

Rather similar to the Five Ws, but in the conditional future tense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws

One once saw those on the walls of newspaper city rooms.

Has someone found the manuscript of a lost Robert Ludlum novel?

I got a chuckle from that comment. It definitely sounds like a title that Ludlum would use.

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