This article assumes knowledge of the Decision Model. You can order the book including a kindle version at amazon.com here.
"Because the book does such a great job of explaining the decision model I have a hard time dinging it because of the lack of tools. It is very thorough and a very good read. The theory is sound and has a ton of potential. I highly recommend reading this book for the theory itself, and if modeling tools become available you will be a step ahead in the industry." - T. Anderson, Amazon.com Review, April 2010
In April of 2010, we understood the concern about the lack of software tools to support The Decision Model. At that time, the book was five months old and knowledge of The Decision Model was new to most people. However, as 2010 draws to a close, the predictions proved true. Software support is no longer lacking! In fact, The Decision Model is supported by excellent software from visionary vendors, with more software coming. This two-part column looks at Decision Model software available today and what we know to be on the immediate horizon.
In Part 2, we divide software tools that support The Decision Model into two major categories. One is repository software by which a business user can author and maintain The Decision Model. The other is deployment software by which technical experts automate and test The Decision Model. The distinction between these two categories is blurry in some cases, but you will want to be aware of both.
In Part 1 below, we ask four questions, beginning with the one most obvious.
A software tool for The Decision Model supports the entire life cycle of Decision Management. This includes the authoring, analysis, testing and deployment of entire decision models. Whether managed by the business – as some people consider ideal – or managed by IT or business analysts on behalf of the business – as others consider necessary – business decisions need not only a repository for storing decision models, but a range of functions to manage them effectively. This is similar to the idea that business processes need a repository for storing process models and also need functions for managing them over time.
Because The Decision Model is a new technique (compared to other models), the functions required of a supporting software tool specific to the creation and maintenance of decision models are also new. Let us start with a list of ten basic functions:
There are other “nice to have” functions of a robust software tool for The Decision Model. However, the ten functions above suffice to provide a solid foundation for a comprehensive tool. Those of you who have read our book Business Rules Revolution (von Halle and Goldberg, HappyAbout, 2006) will recognize much of the functionality in Chapter 8, John Semmel’s excellent piece entitled “Better Rules through Rules Authoring Software”. The impact of the software that John describes in that article was profound on that particular business rules project. But that software was custom-developed for a target testing and automation environment. A general tool for The Decision Model must achieve this same level of functionality (and more), but for all, or at least the most common, decision modeling and deployment environments.
While a robust decision-modeling tool supports these ten functions, there are (and will continue to be) tools that support a subset as well as those that deliver more. However, not all Decision Model projects or organizations require all of these functions.
Therefore, a practical way to understand the maturity of a software tool for The Decision Model is to understand first, the target maturity level of a target decision model project itself. Organizations use the Business Decision Maturity Model to determine the right level of maturity for the objectives of a project, a group of projects, or a business unit or the entire enterprise. See Figure 1(1).
Each level of the BDMM aims for different objectives. The higher the level, the more sophisticated, mature, and perhaps more challenging, the objectives are. Here is a brief description of the objective of each level associated with the functionality needed from a software tool for The Decision Model.
Figure 1: Business Decision Maturity Model
The easiest way to select an appropriate software tool for The Decision Model is first to identify your target maturity level using the BDMM. Second, understand the functionality you need in a tool at that level. Third, select an available tool that provides that functionality. Table 1 correlates, in a simple way, the functionality needed in a tool for each BDMM level. Next month, in Part 2, we investigate the categories and actual tools on the market that support The Decision Model and the functionality they support.
Visible | Agile | Aligned | Predictive | Autonomic | |
Software Functionality | BDMM Level 1 | BDMM Level 2 | BDMM Level 3 | BDMM Level 4 | BDMM Level 5 |
Decision Model Diagram | Complete | Complete | Complete | Complete | Complete |
Rule Family Table | Complete | Complete | Complete | Complete | Complete |
Glossary | Simple | Medium | Complete | Complete | Complete |
Automated Logic Analysis | Simple | Medium | Complete | Complete | Complete |
Testing and Test Case Generation | Simple | Medium | Complete | Complete | Complete |
Traceability and Deployment | None | Simple | Medium | Complete | Complete |
Connectivity | Simple | Medium | Complete | Complete | |
Governance | Simple | Complete | Complete | ||
Enterprise Support | Complete | Complete | |||
Analytics Integrated into Decisions | Complete |
Table 1: Correlation of Software Functionality to Maturity
Perhaps you can envision the creation of Decision Models by business people using a simple, intuitive interface supporting very basic functionality, such as Decision Model Diagrams, and Rule Family population. Today, this is happening in many places. From here, business analysts can embellish these deliverables with metadata, versions, perhaps automated analysis. Even further, the deliverables move along the life cycle to developers and enterprise architects. The need for software tools becomes obvious. The good news is that adoption of The Decision Model has been more rapid than originally anticipated. The other good news is that software support is catching up quickly! And it’s only just begun.
We invite readers to join The Decision Model on LinkedIN to hear what practitioners are doing and to ask questions about tools in use. In the second part of this article we exam current software available now to support The Decision Model (and an intriguing peek at what is coming in 2011), to support both the business person’s decision modeling and the deployment into software.
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