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Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) in Project Management Curriculum: Exploration and Application to Time, Cost, and Risk

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Engineering Management Division Technical Session 1

Tagged Division

Engineering Management

Page Count

23

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37135

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/37135

Download Count

1171

Paper Authors

biography

Ben D. Radhakrishnan National University

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Ben D Radhakrishnan is currently a full time Faculty in the Department of Engineering and Computing, National University, San Diego, California, USA. He is the Academic Program Director for MS Engineering Management program. He develops and teaches Engineering and Sustainability Management graduate and undergraduate level courses. Ben has taught Sustainability workshops in Los Angeles (Army) and San Diego (SDGE). His special interests and research include promoting Leadership in Sustainability Practices, application of Blockchain technology for reliable corporate social responsibility reports, energy management of Data Centers and to establish Sustainable strategies for enterprises. He is now researching bringing in Artificial Intelligence into project management. He is an Affiliate Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, focusing on the energy efficiency of IT Equipment in a Data Centers.
As a means of promoting student-centric learning, Prof. Radhakrishnan has successfully introduced games into his sustainability classes where students demonstrate the 3s of sustainability, namely, Environment, Economics and Equity, through games. He is the coauthor of books relating to gaming and energy and has published papers in international journals. He is an active participant in national and international conferences with papers and presentations.
Before his teaching career, he had a very successful corporate management career working in R&D at Lucent Technologies and as the Director of Global Technology Management at Qualcomm. He had initiated and managed software development for both the companies in India.
Prof. Radhakrishnan holds three graduate Degrees (M. Tech, M.S., M.B.A), and Sustainable Business Practices certification.

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biography

James Jay Jaurez National University

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Dr. Jaurez is a dedicated Academic Program Director and Associate Professor in Information Technology Management at National University where he has served since 2004. Dr. Jaurez is also a FIRST Robotics Head Coach since 2014 and leads outreach in robotics to the community through partnerships with Makerplace, Steam MakerFest, UCSD Create, Learning for Life, and many others over his over 19 years as an educator. Dr. Jaurez holds degrees in Computing Technology (PhD), Education (Masters), Cybersecurity (MS), Business Administration and Finance (MBA), Marketing (BS), and Physics (Minor). Dr. Jaurez has professional experience in scientific instruments and software development. He also has led and been awarded many grants from Hewlett Packard, NASA, Qualcomm, Pratt and Whitney, WE Electronics, Department of Defense, NU Innovation and NU Continued Innovations in the fields of game methodologies, robotics, fabrication, education, and community outreach. Dr. Jaurez has books, publications, and presentations in education technology, robotics, cybersecurity, project management, productivity, gamification, and simulations. Finally, Dr. Jaurez is a leader at New Break Christian Church, a member of ACM, the PMI, and many other professional organizations.

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Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is rapidly being adopted in all facets of products and services. Many aspects of AI technology have been adopted at different levels in areas like robotics, autonomous vehicles, retail, and virtual agents. AI technology has yet to be exploited to adopt many Tools, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP) that can help Project Management’s (PM) planning, prediction, and performance. Current PM education uses traditional deterministic and simulation models and far away from using AI. Adoption of AI into PM will deliver processes that will be superior with new features such as machine learning and predictive data analysis for better decisions and higher productivity. Project Management Institute has recognized the significance of AI technology and recommends its teaching and adoption to real world PM. The notion of educational AI has been closely related to the burgeoning industry need for explainable AI, known as XAI. With XAI, an organization can provide AI solutions with great transparency and trust. For educators, this move to XAI for PM provides a bridge to teaching and learning for the same purpose of transparency and trust, as well as the unique opportunity to validate traditional engineering methods. This research will explore the adoption and applicability of AI technology of automation, data analysis, machine learning, and prediction to PM education and training in two key knowledge areas of PMBOK’s (Project Management Book of Knowledge), namely, time and cost which are also associated with risk. Traditional PM processes will be discussed and compared to AI-enabled TTP demonstrating AI advantage. AI’s machine learning will be illustrated using a schedule time dataset to facilitate time prediction on a well-known IBM Watson platform confirming verification and trust in the process. This research culminates with recommendations for inclusions of AI principles and practices in PM education and an exploration of future AI applications for other PMBOK’s knowledge areas with optimal solutions.

Radhakrishnan, B. D., & Jaurez, J. J. (2021, July), Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) in Project Management Curriculum: Exploration and Application to Time, Cost, and Risk Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37135

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