mcdermott was a prime mover, with james hendler and others, behind the ai planning systems conference, which, after merging with the european conference on planning, became the annual international conference on automated planning and scheduling (icaps). he also helped start the international planning competition, which is held semiannually in conjunction with icaps. he led the group that molded the planning domain definition language from several predecessor notations in order to provide a standard notation for input to planning systems.