JT on EDM

Mike, over at the requirements defined blog, had this post today: Dr. Changelove (or how I learned to quit worrying and love change). I used a similar title just over a year ago in an article on ebizQ called Business Rules Cafe (for those who don’t remember, Atomic Cafe was another satirical film about the atomic age). While Mike focused on the challenges of getting people to change, I was focused on the reluctance of IT departments to accept that change is inevitable – that users aren’t being difficult when they change what they want/need in their systems, just realistic. One of the great things about enterprise decision management is that, by separating out and managing decisions, the high-change parts of systems and processes are isolated so they can be managed using technology that works well even when your needs are changing all the time.

One thing to note in the previous paragraph is that I never said “requirements change a lot” and that’s because I don’t believe they do. The rules that need to go into a system, the decision making rules, change all the time but rules are not requirements. I presented on this topic with Scott Sehlhorst at the business rules forum last year – check out this post.
Scott writes a great blog on requirements over at Tyner Blain for those who are interested.

Note: I also blog on ebizQ at www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management