while preparing for class, I ran across a link in a previous semester's syllabus. Heilmeier's Catechism, which I hadn't heard of before, is a set of questions credited to engineer George Harry Heilmeier that anyone proposing a research project or product development effort should be able to answer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Heilmeier#Heilmeier.27s_Catechism