While many organizations have adopted The Decision Model, others are actively exploring how it may improve or totally replace their current business rules approaches. The latter are asking the critical question:
How is The Decision is Model different from what we are doing and why are these differences important?
This month’s column answers that question. It starts by summarizing business rules approaches. It then explains the five most important differences and their benefits. It ends with how these five differences have changed real world projects and culture.
The differences are extremely important. They are not by accident!
For the purpose of this column, there are three general types of business rules approaches: (a) from business engine software vendors (e.g., BRMS, BPMS), (b) from consultants or consulting companies independent of business engine software, and (c) within corporate organizations who create customized businesses rule management.
Common practice among all three types is translation of business sources into a communicable form, often a set of business rules or business rules statements. There are various formats: free-form text, fill-the-blank templates, decision tables, decision trees, and rigorous grammar. Software support for storing business rules for the first type is usually a proprietary front-end interface, aiming to be non-technical, to a commercial engine. Supporting software for the second type is usually a business rule repository independent of a commercial engine. Supporting software for the third type may be a combination of vendor-supplied and home-grown software.
Also common is that data referenced in business rule representations is modeled in data-centric models (e.g., data models, object models, fact models). In some approaches, these models must exist before writing business rules because business rule expressions must reference fact types or data elements from the associated data-centric models.
Most people believe that business rules are an important consideration in implementing change and delivering enterprise agility. However, in today’s world of rapid change and pressure, there are common hurdles that, too often, get in the way of optimum success. The hurdles we hear most often are:
With a desire for a universal representation and with these hurdles in mind, The Decision Model needed to accomplish two goals. The first was to introduce a new, simple formalism understandable by everyone. The second was to eliminate all impediments (i.e., those hurdles) to true business-empowered governance.
Table 1 summarizes the five differences that reach these goals.
Five Decision Model Differences |
Description |
#1: Formal Notion of Decision |
The Decision Model is a technique for elevating the role of business rule management to that of business decision management. |
#2: Formal Model |
The Decision Model is a rigorous model; its theoretical foundation defined by 15 principles. |
#3: Model-Based Functionality |
As a holistic model, a decision model lends itself to model-oriented functionality that is not possible with lists or group of business rules or single logic tables. |
#4: Decision Model-Based Software Innovator |
The Decision Model has already spurred software innovations, some not possible in the other approaches and more are expected. |
#5: Pure Business Audience-Driven |
The Decision Model is the first approach designed from the perspective of pure business interaction and governance. |
Table 1 : Summary of Five Decision Model Differences
The Decision Model is a technique for elevating the role of business rule management to that of business decision management.
The shift in focus to business decision from individual business rules is significant. It changes the business person’s emphasis from writing business rules to the important business task of evaluating and measuring the impact of business decisions on the business.
Figure 1.1 and 1.2: Simplification of Business Process Model with Decision Anchors
In a real-world project, simplification became obvious when the quantity of business process models for the entire project reduced from 25 to 10. Some of those process models became reusable elsewhere and most of the decision models became candidates for reuse.
The Decision Model is a rigorous model; its theoretical foundation defined by 15 principles.
The Decision Model, as a new model, is the result of rethinking the problem and learning from history. It brings to the world of business rules a well-defined structure based on the inherent nature of logic, extended with integrity and normalization principles. This is similar in concept to what the Relational Model brings to the world of data.
The Decision Model, despite its rigor, is a step towards simplicity. Simplicity implies that a decision model represents business rules and logic using only a few, familiar concepts. While based on theory, anyone can understand a decision model even if unfamiliar with its theory. The combination of simplicity and solid theory makes it valuable and long lasting.
Figure 2 contains three decision models of different sizes and shapes.
Figure 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3: Three Different Decision Models
The real-world project above originally delivered 250 random groups of business rules which reduced to 20 decisions totally comprised of 51 normalized Rule Families in third normal form. It also took much less time to create the simplified business process models, normalized decision models compared to the original combined deliverables that were ultimately abandoned as unmanageable. In addition, it was easier to implement the decision models in the target technology than the original groups of business rules.
As a holistic model, a decision model lends itself to model-oriented functionality that is not possible with lists or group of business rules or single logic tables.
As history has shown us, a rigorous model provides extremely useful functionality, such cut, copy, paste, compare, version, and customize.
Major areas of decision model-driven functionality are the following:
The Decision Model has already spurred software innovations, some not possible in the other approaches and more are expected.
In 2009, we proposed that The Decision Model’s greatest significance may be its potential to inspire new technology and business directions. Shortly after the book publication, the ability to create decision models began to appear in modeling and requirements-oriented tools.
Most recently, a new kind of software called a BDMS is available. BDMS stands for Business Decision Management System .
BDMS is not simply a decision modeling tool or a front-end to a particular BRMS. A BDMS supports customizable full life cycle business-to-IT governance of business decisions and decision model deployment. Figure 3 shows a sample governance workflow.
Figure 3 : Simple Governance Workflow for Decision Models within a Business Initiative or Change
The Decision Model is the first approach designed from the perspective of pure business interaction and governance.
By design, The Decision Model is a tool for business audiences. This means business people or analysts create, validate, and change decision models without any other skills. For instance, a data-centric model is not a pre-requisite. The only requirement is to understand basic decision model notation and create a simple glossary of terms. Nothing more.
The emphasis on pure business interaction renders decision models that are easily understood by anyone, devoid of technical artifacts.
The result of these five differences is that creation of, and changes to, decision models is faster and delivers higher quality than other approaches. It is common for decision model organizations to create, validate, test, and deploy decision models in 50% of the time it takes with other approaches. Use of BDMS software is even more impressive.
Adding up the benefits of the five differences, it is easy to see why such success becomes possible:
The Decision Model advantages:
BDMS advantages:
The Decision Model is not just another Business Rules Approach. Rather, it is designed from the beginning to break the boundaries and frustrations of existing business rules approaches without losing benefits of separation. The Decision Model has already signaled a whole new generation of methodology, governance technology, and future automation technology.
If the past two years since publication of the book are an indication, a new generation of enterprise is emerging, truly driven by the business and powered by The Decision Model.
Sapiens DECISION is a BDMS that automates all principles of The Decision Model.
There are no products in your shopping cart.
0 Items |