Risk management and expert system development methodology

A risk-based expert-system development methodology has been developed to provide guidance to managers and technical personnel and to serve as a standard for developing expert systems. Expert-system development differs from conventional software development in that the information needed to prepare system requirements for expert systems is not known at the outset of a project and is obtained by knowledge engineering methods. The paper describes the expert-system life cycle, development methodology, and the approach taken in this methodology to manage and reduce the risks in expert system development. Also examined are the risks of using and of not using a methodology, the studies undertaken to validate the provisions of the expert system development methodology, and the results of these validation studies.