  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.

Artificial Intelligence