How TDM Principles Inform Good Practice in DMN

How TDM Principles Inform Good Practice in DMN

Decision Modeling notations have been adopted by companies to improve the integrity, transparency and agility of their important business decisions. They facilitate the management of business decisions as a vital business asset.

Over the past eight years, Decision Modeling has been dominated by two standards: The Decision Model (TDM), defined by Sapiens Inc, established in 2009 and documented superbly in The Decision Model book by Larry Goldberg and Barbara von Halle and The Decision Model and Notation (DMN) an open standard first defined by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 2013 and documented in books by James Taylor and Jan Purchase and Bruce Silver. Both standards are in use and continue to evolve.

While James Taylor and I were collaborating on our Decision Modelling book, and discussing our experiences of using DMN after using TDM, we wondered: how does TDM experience inform good practice in DMN? What can newcomers to Decision Modelling and DMN learn from the earlier standard?

In short, a great deal.

We believe that new, and even experienced, Decision Modeling practitioners can benefit significantly from background knowledge of TDM. This article explains why and what these benefits are.

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How DMN is Different

How DMN is Different

In a recent article on the LinkedIn Group ‘The Decision Model and Notation (DMN)’, and on his own blog, Bruce Silver elegantly described why DMN is different to (and better than) other means of representing business decision models and asserted that these differences are set to make DMN of crucial importance to businesses that rely on their operational decisions. While I agree with Bruce’s feature list, I have some reservations about some of his observations.

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Who Models Business Decisions?

Who Models Business Decisions?

One of the main motivations that James Taylor and I had for writing our book Real World Decision Modeling with DMN  was sharing our experience of using decision modeling on many large projects and training engagements. One specific question that interested us was: “who uses Decision Modeling?

James recently discussed how Decision Modeling is used. Assuming your organization is persuaded of the benefits of Decision Modeling, which specific project team members are most often tasked with building and maintaining a decision model (using DMN, TDM or any other notation)? We present our project experiences here. Let us know if and how yours are different. (more…)

Why DMN? (In 1000 Words)

Why DMN? (In 1000 Words)

At the time of writing there are two major industry standards for modeling business decisionsThe Decision Model (TDM) defined by Sapiens Inc, established in 2009 and documented in The TDM book by Larry Goldberg and Barbara von Halle and The Decision Model and Notation (DMN) an open standard defined by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 2014 and version 1.1 is due to ratified later this year.

In this article we explain why, given the choice, you should model your business decisions using DMN as opposed to any other notation. Decision modelers should understand how TDM and DMN are similar, how they differ and their comparative strengths and weaknesses. (more…)

Invitation: Workshop on Enterprise Decision Modeling in Practice

Invitation: Workshop on Enterprise Decision Modeling in Practice

We cordially invite you to join us in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, for a workshop on how Decision Modeling can optimise your organisation’s management of its most fundamental and valuable asset: the business logic that controls the thousands of automated business decisions it makes every day. We will present case studies, based on real projects, that demonstrate the practical benefits of applying TDM and DMN to the management of business logic at an enterprise scale.

Click here now to find our more details and register for this free workshop in Amersfoort on Wednesday 28th January 2015 from 9am to 4pm. During this workshop you: will learn how The Decision Model (TDM), fortified by elements of the DMN, can be used to structure, manage and optimise your business logic; experience a walk-through of a real decision model and understand the benefits decision management brings at the enterprise scale. (more…)