Adam Gibson

About Me

I am fan of The Heilmeier Catechism George H. Heilmeier, a former DARPA Director (1975-1977) crafted a set of questions known as the Heilmeier Catechism to help agency officials think through and evaluate proposed research programs. DARPA operates on the principle of generating big rewards requires taking big risks. But how does the agency determine what risks are worth taking? What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon. How is it done today and What are the limits of current practice? What is new in your approach and Why do you think it will be successful? Who cares? If you are successful, What difference will it make? What are the risks? How much will it cost? How long will it take? What are the mid term and final exams to check for success? Thorough research is one of my first directions. I like to build as much genuine rapport as possible with all my clients and learn as much as I can before any direct discussion. What is the biggest client facing issue? What must be avoided? What is the problem we want to solve with the services offered? What can be automated? How will the client measure the success of our services? What is the compliance framework? Which do they support? What outside services will we need to collaborate with? What is included in the price? Budget constraints? What is the deadline? What factors could delay our timeline outside of our control? Dedicated Exercises Consistently Over Software like these are methods I like to use to find continued success in projects no matter what challenges our team may face. I enjoy doing complicated things with drones (like the drone light painting in the header image) and robotics in addition to deep research and staying ahead of the news.