The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is often thought to be shrouded in some shadowy veil, heading different research projects for the federal levels of the American government. DARPA has brought advancements to the United States in all sorts of avenues, from material sciences to imaging advancements in infrared and cyber security. Regardless of what research is being done at DARPA, one has to filter through research proposals from eager research designers who all have high hopes of bringing their research proposal to fruition via DARPA’s program and funding avenues. DARPA currently has four major areas in which it seeks research proposals:
- Rethinking Complex Military Systems
- Master the Information Explosion
- Harnessing Biology as Technology
- Expand the Technological Frontier
And really, DARPA is not all that different than many folks who are reading this blog; we like to immerse ourselves in new ideas, embrace change and progress, and challenge the old ideas and sacred cows of the pre-hospital industry. When I think about good ideas I have had or projects I have failed to launch, I think much of that failure is based on my lack of a solid, digestible, and systematic plan. For me, the high-level, strategic view is a lot like DARPA’s above.
What are four or five major themes or objectives for yourself or the program this year? Write them down. You now have a lighthouse to help you stay on task. 
Unless something fits into those categories, maybe it is not a priority, and we can use these guidelines to help weed out all the extra good idea fairies. The good-idea fairy can be rather infectious. You see a new video on a medical intervention you want to bring back to work to progress the practice of your providers, and it’s an exciting time. You go to a conference and learn about an agency doing something you have wanted to do for ages, and they figured out a great way to implement it. If you are active in the FOAMed world, you probably run into many of these little sparks. If you are like me, you start gaming in your head all the ways you could implement this at work, all the what-if’s, all the roadblocks, and maybe all of the possible successes. I think many of us often have this drive to bring a new idea, concept, intervention, or skill to our workplace. What to gain market share.
Heilmeier Catechism
George Heilmeier was the lead of DARPA from 1975-77. Before this, he worked for RCA (yes, I’m dating myself here) and helped invent the liquid crystal display (LCD) we have seen all over the place. He was well known for defining a research proposal evaluation process that the agency still uses today. While it may seem overly simple at first, I think it helps explain a few systematic things: it allows for a framework to establish a starting point, it breaks things down into simple parts that make the proposal more straightforward to understand, and lastly, it sets forth metrics to help you be objective and evaluate your work. You can find more information on this from a simple search, but here are the basics that Texas Tech University does an excellent job of describing:
- 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? Why improvements are needed? What are the consequences of doing nothing?
- What is new in your approach, and why do you think it will be successful? What preliminary work have you done? How have you tested your assumptions on a small scale?
- Who cares? Identify your stakeholders. Who will benefit from your successful project?
- If you’re successful, what difference will it make? What will your successful project mean for your research? For the infrastructure of your institution and future capabilities? For your discipline? For related disciplines? For society? For the funding agency? What applications are enabled as a result?
- What are the risks and the payoff’s? Why are the potential rewards worth the risk? What have you done to mitigate risk? What’s Plan B?
- How much will it cost? How long will it take? Who needs to be involved to ensure success? What institutional resources need to be committed?
- What are the midterm and final “exams” to check for success? How will you assess progress and make mid-course corrections? What are the metrics for success? How will you know you’re done?
Answer every question of the catechism in your project description. Make it easy for a reviewer to pick your answers and quote them in the review. Make your answers as specific, quantitative, and jargon-free as possible. Provide a summary at the end of your project description that recaps the catechism (Texas Tech University, 2021). This is a great place to start and fill in the blanks. I am working on something like this for my agency: Do you want to explore ordering new IV catheters or implementing a new guideline? It’s going to need to be on this template.
Concept Mapping
Are you looking for something to help you explore the idea more, map out your stakeholders, and maybe help do some further brainstorming? Something that’s less formal than above to help you get to where you can formally pitch your new idea? I think a concept map is the way to go and is easy to use with this tool. If you’ve ever heard of a mind map, it’s similar, but the concept map is systematic, it’s not just one singular idea. I’m happy to die on the hill that everything we do happens in a system, not in a vacuum, so I think concept mapping is an excellent place to start.
Here are some steps Cornell University suggests to follow:
- Start by brainstorming the main big-picture ideas you want to study.
- This is not a list where the order matters; it’s just a brain-dump list.
- Look through chapter headings, lecture notes, and other class material to ensure you haven’t forgotten anything significant.
- You can make your list digitally, with pencil and paper, on note cards, or even on small scraps of paper.
- Choose an idea from your brain-dump list. It can be an idea that:
- you think is essential (the title of the chapter or lecture, for example),
- was covered in class most recently,
- you feel most confident about,
- or even just a random one.
- Put that idea down on paper or on a whiteboard or chalkboard in the middle. People usually like to put a box or circle around each term—it helps the terms stand out, and it’s oddly satisfying.
- Now, go through your list of terms.
- What other terms are connected to the one you just used?
- What sorts of relationships do you see?
- The relationship could be a hierarchy, a timeline, small things going to significant things, or something else.
- You might not know what relationship you will identify until you look at your list of terms!
- You might identify different relationships than the people you’re studying with, but that’s okay. It can be useful to try to understand why your study partners are thinking differently than you. You don’t necessarily need to agree but do check to make sure you’re not operating with misconceptions or misunderstandings of the material.
- Come up with “linking terms” that explain how you see the ideas being related to each other.
- Linking terms is important for seeing relationships and connections.
- If you can’t come up with a linking term for an idea, try moving the idea around to different spots until you can (Cornell University, n.d.).
- Arrange and re-arrange all of the ideas you identified on your brain-dump list until the way you have them organized makes sense to you.
Moving our services forward will take nothing short of hard work and dedication. It is going to be a grind in the climate we are all working in currently; post-covid fatigue, staffing issues, and financial challenges are not going anywhere. It costs nothing to invest in mental models and organization methods like those presented above. Slow down, get organized, and move the level of yourself and your service forward.
Cornell University. (n.d.). Concept Mapping – Learning Strategies Center. The Learning Strategies Center. Retrieved November 22, 2023, from https://lsc.cornell.edu/how-to-study/concept-maps/
Texas Tech University. (2021). Crafting Better Proposals Using the Heilmeier Catechism. https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/ordc/Resources/heilmeier-catechism.php