Assisting managers in project definition: foundations for intelligent decision support

The authors are developing a knowledge-based software project management system called Watson, written in ART (Automated Reasoning Tool) and Common Lisp. Watson uses a robust conceptual model of the software project management domain as a foundation for assisting software managers in project definition and dynamic problem solving. They present three scenarios (illustrating how managers use Watson in defining project plans), describe the model of software project management constituting the system´s conceptual framework, and examine the knowledge representation used to implement this model. The authors define three underlying reasoning processes Watson uses to maintain the integrity of a user´s project data during project definition, and they discuss how Watson uses these foundational capabilities to provide more extensive support to managers by assisting in the automatic generation of project plan definitions.<>