Role of the expert system in project

management

Philip Robinson

According to a recent survey conducted by PA Manage- ment Consultants, more than 50% of UK companies are either using or developing computer systems which mimic human thought processes. Of those companies surveyed, nine out of ten will be using 'expert systems' within the next three years. From a financial perspective, the Ovum research group estimates that the UK expert system market will expand from a magnitude of £40M in 1986 to £400M by 1992 and that the European market will grow~to over £3 O00M by 1990. This paper examines the role of expert systems in project management, beginning with a discussion of the components of a typical expert system and identification of the fundamen- tal keys to successful project management. Knowledge acquisition poses problems; two basic approaches are given. Selection of a good expert system shell is detailed.

Keywords: expert systems, project management, know- ledge acquisition, shell

P O T E N T I A L R O L E OF EXPERT SYSTEMS IN P R O J E C T M A N A G E M E N T

Project management appears to be an ideal application for expert system treatment. The reason it has not been successfully applied yet on a commercial basis is because project management is such a complex subject. 'But . . . . ' one might say, ' . . . we can already buy a project management system!'. Indeed, there are many 'project management' software packages available for use on both micro- and mainframe computers which assist the manager in the mechanics of scheduling time

Westpac Banking Corporation, Walbrook House, 23 Walbrook, London EC4N 8LD, UK This paper was shortlistcd for the Deloitte Award for IT Project Management 1988 - - under 30 category

and resources, cost allocation and the production of critical path and Gantt charts. However, these software packages are useless without the input of elements needed in a project. The expert system will help in determining these elements. It would do this by enhancing the quality of information available to the project manager: selecting the right information (deter- mining what), presenting the information in the right way (determining how), and presenting the information at the right time (determining when).

C O M P O N E N T S OF AN EXPERT SYSTEMS

An expert system usually incorporates three compon- ents:

Knowledge base. This is the problem solving or 'know how' aspect of the system. The experienced project manager is able to provide his knowledge in a series of 'rules'. Inference engine. The 'engine' which processes the knowledge and directs the reasoning process of the system. It controls the direction and order of inferencing. Database. Holds the record of the rules and defini- tions used to build the system. Expert system 'shells', i.e. computer programs which contain the necessary processing logic, allow the project manager to input data using descriptive English phrases, thereby avoiding the need for the individual to have any programming experience.

KEYS TO BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

By combining the relevant interactions between the project manager, team members and sponsoring organ-

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ization, it is possible to identify several fundamental keys to successful project management. These keys would be entered into the expert system rule base to indicate:

• If a project is realistic in terms of time, cost and effort.

• When to start a project. • When a project should be halted. • If a project needs to be rescheduled. • Imposed deadlines, which are outside the control of

the organization. • Any authority conflicts and possible resolution. • The impact change is liable to have on the organiza-

tion. • Who are the right people for the project team. • The breakdown of the work structure and network

plan. • The size of work 'packages' to ensure that the

components are manageable and have organizational accountability.

• When project objectives have been achieved. • Communication requirements, making sure that

information is provided at the right time to the right people.

• Relationship between responsibility, performance and the rewarding of team members.

• Action .on project termination, e.g. disposition of personnel, transfer of knowledge, financial payments and reporting.

In this way, the expert system should help the project manager avoid some of the pitfalls commonly associated with the failure of projects, by:

• Planning the project from start to finish, not merely starting a project and hoping it will end at some point in the future.

• Assisting the project manager in his knowledge acquisition to give him a more complete picture of the project variables.

• Allowing the project manager to devote the time necessary in laying out the project groundwork and task definition.

• Ensuring that tasks are of a manageable size. • Incorporating network planning techniques and

using the network as the focal point of project implementation.

• Determining a realistic information flow. • Enabling the constant re-planning of jobs to accom-

modate frequent changes on dynamic programs. • Tying together responsibility and performance.

If mistakes in project implementation are made, the expert system should be capable of redefining the rules for future application.

In terms of decision making, the project manager should be realistic about his own competencies. For systems that actually produce advice and recommenda- tions for the project manager, explanations are vital - both for understanding and trusting them. An effect of increasing trust in the system may, over a period of time, result in the project manager losing some of his decision-making competence. In order to maintain actual control of the system, it is necessary for the

project manager to have the ability to accurately predict how events are liable to develop and measure the results produced by the system against the expected situation. If there is considerable disparity, then further investigation is required in order to make a definitive decision.

DEVELOPING A PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

How would one attempt to design an expert system for project management? To develop a clearer picture of what is required, a number of basic questions must first be resolved before it is possible to consider expert system development.

• Hardware and software to be used, i.e. is an expert system 'shell' to be used or will the program be built using artificial intelligence languages?

• Is the application to be developed for 'in-house' or commercial use?

• Will the system be 'stand-alone', or be integrated within conventional software?

• Which development methodology, e.g. rapid proto- typing, is to be used?

• What previous experience have the system designers had in developments of this nature and how much project manager involvement will there be?

• At what level of user is the system to be aimed, i.e. experts or novices?

• What are the time and resource constraints?

It is essential that the project manager who will use the system answers these questions and plays the prominent and critical role in the system development. He should be involved from the very outset of the project to ensure that the system engineers effectively address his requirements.

Problems in development often arise from taking a single perspective and having a narrow view of the issues to be addressed, resulting in poor specification. The most common failing in the design of recent expert systems has been to neglect the issues of how organiza- tions monitor and control the quality of decision making, the role and significance of 'experts', the varied status and usage of 'knowledge', and the verification or evaluation of specific individual de- cisions. Consequently, systems have been unable to link into the existing organizational procedures and objectives, thus undermining their potential.

EXPERT SYSTEM AS A PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL

There are a number of areas where the expert system could assist the project manager in his task of manag- ing.

• Action - help identify what needs to be done. • Advice - determine a course of action. • Aims - bring these more clearly into focus. • Appraisal - look at the progress made and assess

future developments. • Assessment - of team members performance. • Awareness - by improving overall project control.

26 Project Management

• Behaviour - will encourage rational and level-headed rather than emotive actions.

• Clarification - of the situation for the project manager , team and sponsor.

• Communicat ion - essential for good project manage- ment.

• Conflict - help to avoid these situations arising. • Continuity - allow new project managers to take

control easily. • Decisiveness - encourage positive actions. • Delegation - relieve the project manager from

routine tasks. • Deve lopment - rules can be modified or changed

through experience. • Discipline - provide a mechanism to enable the pro-

ject manager to impose a greater degree of self and team discipline.

• Effectiveness - in the achievement of desired results. • Efficiency - less time and effort required to manage

and implement projects. • Example - illustrate different ways of handling

problems. • Expectat ions - indication of what is liable to happen

in the future. • Explanation - rationale behind answers given. • Facts - only the pertinent facts presented. • Feedback - confirmation of project manager ' s

decisions. • Follow through - reminder when actions have not

been completed. • Give/manage time - p r o j e c t manager can concentrate

on higher level decisions and give more time to his team.

• Inspiration - p rompt answers which could lead to other creative thoughts.

• Judgement - present facts in a manner to make judgements easier.

• Knowledge - retain project management expertise for future use.

• Learning - experienced and junior project staff will improve their project management skills and tech- niques.

• Mistakes - provide a mechanism to avoid some of them.

• Objectives - ensure that these are clearly stated. • Opportuni t ies - indicate what is possible. • Overview - show what has happened and why; what

is liable to happen, what and who is needed to take future action.

• Participation - allow project members to assist in building and monitoring the system.

• Perception - prior indication of events which are liable to occur.

• Positiveness - encourage decisive and solid decisions. • Principles - introduce an element of standardization. • Priorities - help in fixing. • Problem solving - should be more succinct. • Profit - cost/benefit of project options calculated. • Question - to make the project manager think and be

able to support his decision. • Relationship - indicate relationships between people

and events. • Reliability - dependable and consistent answers. • Resilience - ability to substantiate its ' reasoning' . • Responsibility - help project manager to deal with it.

• Results - assist in their achievement. • Review - continual review of project developments. • Standards - essential to a common understanding of

project management technique. • Support - in managing the project . • Teams - allow every team member to be monitored

and controlled. • T r a i n i n g - an excellent tool for inexperienced project

managers.

A C Q U I R I N G T H E ' K N O W L E D G E '

Knowledge acquisition poses problems. There are two basic approaches to this task.

• Structured interviewing and repertory grids. This relies on the project manager declaring what he regards as the key variables needed for solving the problem and how they relate to the solution.

• Rule induction techniques. Emphasis is placed upon the discovery of patterns in simple data, using simple statistical algorithms. The project manager is involved in selecting sample projects and then deciding the key variables.

U S E O F P R O T O T Y P I N G

The other component of knowledge engineering is the use of prototyping to elicit project managers ' knowledge and then improve it by studying and correcting the mistakes made. This process of testing and ref inement seems to be a method of trial and error, and may still not result in a system which matches expectations. To help avoid this situation arising, the prototype expert system is usually checked against a library of simple cases which are known to have been successful. This helps 'debugging' and to focus attention on problem areas which necessitate modifications to the knowledge base. Grea t care should be taken when selecting these sample cases, as there is a danger that they may be unrepresentative. Unless good samples are chosen, once the system is applied to a real situation it may give disappointing performance and reduce system credi- bility.

It would be unwise to trust one individual's ' exper t ' knowledge for the sole creation of the system. A collective approach, asking for input from a variety of domain experts, is more likely to produce a prototype which requires less testing and refining before being applied to real cases than one which is evolved from one expert. So, although a collective approach increases the time and effort necessary to create a prototype, time and effort can be recouped by undertaking a much simpler and quicker modification programme.

Thorough testing and debugging of the system is essential to determine the reliability of the data and eliminate possible ambiguities. It is useful at an early stage to define performance levels expected. Prelimi- nary field trials should concentrate on the problems occurring from the human-compu te r interface such as speed of operat ion, ease of use, wording of questions and conclusions.

Vol 7 No 1 February 1989 27

C R E A T I N G AND MAINTAINING T H E ' K N O W L E D G E '

The size of the knowledge base and the frequency of its change, are two of the issues facing the project manager in an attempt to maintain the consistency and quality of decisions. The validity of the knowledge base has to be assured to those who develop the guidance, and there have to be clear mechanisms for identifying any problems and feeding these back into the system for revision. Therefore, careful consideration should be given to the choice of person given the job of developing, constructing, validating and maintaining the system. Ideally, this will be the project manager himself. It would not be appropriate for the knowledge base construction to be carried out in isolation by a 'knowledge engineer' as a one-off activity.

There is a need to incorporate the process of creation and maintenance of the knowledge base into the existing organizational procedures and expertise. The knowledge base will have to be maintained by the project manager in a manner corresponding to the way that the original knowledge and guidance was develop- ed. This should also ensure that changes to the system are logical, consistent and progressive.

C H O O S I N G AN E X P E R T SYSTEM ' S H E L L '

Selection of a good expert system 'shell' is fundamental to building a powerful, flexible, maintainable and easy to use program. Good 'shell' design features include:

• screen-based input as opposed to one based on a programming language,

• rules/structures entered in no imposed sequence, • backward or forward 'chaining' (deductive and

induction reasoning), • deletion confirmation, • graphics and text facilities, • link with external files, e.g. databases/spreadsheets

etc., • ease of input, • abbreviated commands, • no unsolicited actions initiated by the system, • error messages should be understandable, non-

threatening, low-key and given as early as possible, • 'trial and error' development tolerance, • clear screen layout, i.e. spacious, logical and consist-

ent, • response times should be quick and their variability

should be minimized.

C O N C L U S I O N

The expert system is, therefore, a tool to be used bzthe project manager as an aid to decision making and problem solving. It is recommended that, in common with cigarette packaging, sales of expert systems developed for use in project management carry a warning, at least, until an understanding of how to use the technology properly is developed, along the lines of 'It has been determined that the following recommen- dations produced by this system may endanger your wealth'.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Asimov, I The complete robot Grafton, UK (1983) Bryant, P Managing expert systems Wiley, UK (1988) Checkland, P B Systems thinking, system practice Wiley,

UK (1981) Intelligent Environments Crystal manual (1986) Johnson, T The commercial applications of expert

systems technology Ovum Ltd, UK (1984) Jones, K 'Expert systems blossom' Comput. Weekly

(January 1987) Mitchie, D and Johnson, R The creative computer

Penguin, UK (1985) Seaman M A 'Expert systems in management services'

Manage. Serv. Z (October 1987) Stow, R and Lunn, S 'How to identify business

applications of expert systems' Second International Expert Systems Conference Learned Information Ltd, UK (1986)

Philip Robinson works for the European division o f Westpac Banking Corporation, a major Australian Bank, as a Business Systems Consultant. His role in- cludes extensive use o f project management skills and method- ologies in the introduction o f com- puter-based business applications. He spent the earlier part o f his working life with a large building society and international bank, primarily in an organization and methods environment. Prior to joining Westpac, he spent a num- ber o f years as an 0 & M/Adminis- tration Manager in the commercial sector with haircare products com- pany, Wella GB. Mr Robinson is an associate of the Chartered Building Societies Institute and Institute o f Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.

28 Project Management