Decision Management: The Elevator Pitch
Caught in an elevator with a brain surgeon and a lawyer and they asked me what my company does and its value proposition, here is my answer. (more…)
Decision Modeling: The Bottom Line
Why should organizations model their important business decisions as part of digital transformation? We’ve been asked so many times to explain how our clients have benefited from decision modeling that we decided to capture it here. This article covers seven reasons to adopt decision modeling and summarizes the bottom-line benefits decision modeling has brought to companies that use it effectively.
Why Every Business Analyst Should Be Able to Model Business Decisions
Introduction
In this article I propose that every business analyst should be capable of identifying and modeling business decisions precisely and transparently. They should use a prescribed, standard format to describe decision-making that can be understood by other analysts with minimal explanation, rather than the individualistic, ad-hoc spreadsheets, text documents or technical business rules that they so often use today. Business analysts should be as proficient in modelling decision as they are with data or process and decision modeling should be a recognized as a ‘tool of the trade’. Being able to precisely represent business data, process and decisions should be seen as essential to the analyst role.
Without this skill, vital business knowledge will be buried in the volumes of incoherent verbiage that constitutes most written specifications; lost in the heads of SMEs who ultimately leave the company; or obscured in millions of lines of programming code or equally obscure excel spreadsheets where it may safely hide without fear of discovery.
New Book Release: Real-World Decision Modeling with DMN
I am pleased to announce the release of James Taylor’s and my comprehensive guide to decision modeling with the Object Management Group’s Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard. The book, “Real-World Decision Modeling with DMN”, has been published by Meghan-Kiffer Press and is now on general release, available from Amazon in paper and Kindle versions. It is also available from Barnes and Noble.
Decision Modeling is an important technique for improving the effectiveness, consistency and agility of an organization’s operational decisions and a vital enabler of the continuous improvement of its business processes. DMN is a standard that is integrated with many other established industry standards. It has been created by experienced practitioners and is maintained by the Object Management Group (OMG; a prominent standards authority). It is flexible and extensible. It is already supported by over 14 software tools. Indeed, DMN represents the most complete and best supported means of modeling business decisions that is currently available or likely to become available in the near future.
“A well-defined, well-structured approach to Decision Modeling (using the OMG international DMN standard) gives a repeatable, consistent approach to decision-making and also allows the crucial ‘why?’ question to be answered—how did we come to this point and what do we do next? The key to accountability, repeatability, consistency and even agility is a well-defined approach to business decisions, and the standard and this book gets you there.”
— Richard Mark Soley, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO, Object Management Group, Inc.
Introduction to Decision Modeling 4
Ahead of the publication of our joint book on Decision Modeling, to be released later this year, James Taylor and I have made a series of video shorts about business decision modeling. In this brief video, James and I talk about why we decided to write a book, including:
- Why the DMN specification is good standards document, but not ideal way for users to learn decision modeling
- Who our book is aimed at and what it aims to achieve
- The content readers can expect: best practices, patterns and examples from our project experience
Let us know what you think. Review the first, second and third posts of this series. Find out more about decision modeling. Talk to us about decision modeling mentoring and training.
In our next post we’ll discuss the differences between decisions and business rules.
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