Integrated design teams: knowledge engineering for large scale commercial expert system development

In order to build expert systems effectively, the organizational framework for knowledge engineering may itself need to be reengineered to meet these requirements. The author focuses on one such case. He describes an integrated design team approach evolved to support knowledge engineering for two generic expert system products. After discussing the reasons for choosing this approach, the author describes team staffing and functional organization. Evidence indicates that in the context of the case, the integrated design team provided significant benefits, including substantial productivity improvement. The strengths, limitations, and conditions that might indicate or restrict the use of such an approach in other organizations working on large-scale generic expert systems are discussed