R&D Analyst: An Interactive Approach to Normative Decision System Model Construction

TL;DR

The paper presents R&D Analyst, an interactive decision system that constructs influence diagram models for research projects, emphasizing flexible, blackboard-based reasoning to aid decision-making in R&D portfolio evaluation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interactive architecture for normative decision system modeling using blackboard systems, applicable to R&D project evaluation and potentially other domains.

Findings

Interactive influence diagram construction improves model clarity.

Blackboard architecture offers flexibility for decision system development.

System's approach supports complex R&D portfolio analysis.

Abstract

This paper describes the architecture of R&D Analyst, a commercial intelligent decision system for evaluating corporate research and development projects and portfolios. In analyzing projects, R&D Analyst interactively guides a user in constructing an influence diagram model for an individual research project. The system's interactive approach can be clearly explained from a blackboard system perspective. The opportunistic reasoning emphasis of blackboard systems satisfies the flexibility requirements of model construction, thereby suggesting that a similar architecture would be valuable for developing normative decision systems in other domains. Current research is aimed at extending the system architecture to explicitly consider of sequential decisions involving limited temporal, financial, and physical resources.