Decision Management

Decision Management and the 4Ds

April 10, 2012

A recent new twitter follower had an interesting post on his blog back in 2010 - The 4Ds “Detect, Derive, Decide and Do. I liked the description of this pattern and as it is a common one for Decision Management Systems I thought I would make a couple of quick comments:

The Derive piece of this pattern [...]

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First Look – BigML

April 10, 2012

While there are many machine learning packages out there, BigML is trying to make them usable by people with just a little experience – to improve the learning curve of machine learning techniques. At the same time they also address the scale challenge as Gigabytes of data override the traditional algorithms. Their product is therefore [...]

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Target variables matter but so do decisions

April 8, 2012

Dean Abbot wrote a great post recently “Why Defining the Target Variable in Predictive Analytics is Critical” in which he referenced the CRISP-DM approach to building predictive analytic models and talked about the importance of target variable selection in building an effective model. The thrust of Dean’s post was the crucial point that because
The target [...]

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Is Machine Learning v Domain expertise the wrong question?

April 5, 2012

KDNuggets had an interesting poll this week in which readers expressed themselves as Skeptical of Machine Learning replacing Domain Expertise. This struck me not because I disagree but because I think it is in some ways the wrong question:

Any given decision is made based on a combination of information, know-how and pre-cursor decisions.
The know-how can be [...]

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Webinar: Predictive Analytics at the Speed of Business

April 4, 2012

[ May 3, 2012; 10:00 am to 11:00 am. ] I am giving a webinar with Dr Alex Guazelli of Zementis on Predictive Analytics at the Speed of Business: How decision management and a real-time infrastructure get predictive analytics where and when you need them.

Organizations are looking to maximize the value of their analytics investment. They need to accelerate the deployment process, reduce costs and get [...]

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Decision Management boosts AP performance

April 3, 2012

There was an interesting little article on the Institute of Financial Operations site last week – In relentless pursuit of productivity: Index tracks traits of best-in-breed AP operations. This reported on some results from the Accounts Payable Productivity Index study. What struck me about this was the role of automated decision-making (using business rules) among [...]

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Live Event – Sapphire: Flexible, Easy-to-Change & Rock-Solid Apps with BRFplus

March 26, 2012

[ May 16, 2012; 1:15 pm; ] I am co-presenting at SAP’s Sapphire/ASUG event this year on “Building Flexible, Easy-to-Change and Rock-Solid Applications with BRFplus Decision Services” with Carsten Ziegler, author of a great book on SAP’s rule engine BRFplus.
SAP ABAP business applications can be rightly described as high performance, robust and rock-solid. Making them also flexible and easy to change is a [...]

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Live Event: IBM IMPACT – Decision Management Trends

March 26, 2012

[ May 1, 2012; 10:45 am to 12:00 pm. ] Session 2750 at IBM’s IMPACT this year is titled “Decision Management Trends with Author and Thought Leader James Taylor”. I will be discussing Decision Management, how to build Decision Management Systems and more. UPDATE: I will be joined by a great panel of technical architects who will answer your questions on Decision Management:

AVP/Product Mgr & [...]

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Live Event: IBM IMPACT – From Business Rules to a Decision-Centric Organization

March 26, 2012

[ April 30, 2012; 3:45 pm to 5:00 pm. ] Session 2420 at IBM’s IMPACT is titled “From Business Rules to a Decision-Centric Organization” and is being presented jointly by me and a client of mine – Gagan Saxena of Apple Vacations.
Apple Vacations is expanding its B2C business by improving consumer experience, adding intelligent personalization and dynamically creating product packages – a dramatic shift from [...]

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Live Event: IBM IMPACT – Book Signing

March 26, 2012

[ May 1, 2012; 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm. ] The folks at IBM Press have asked me to sign copies of “Decision Management Systems: A Practical Guide to Business Rules and Predictive Analytics” at IBM’s IMPACT event this year. I will be at the bookstore from noon to 1pm on May 1. Bring a copy by to have it signed or buy one at [...]

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Can good decisions have bad outcomes?

March 22, 2012

There was an interesting discussion on LinkedIn recently – A good decision is the same as a good outcome. True, False, or “I don’t know? This illustrates one of the key challenges in Decision Management Systems – because good decisions can have bad outcomes.
This can seem counter-intuitive. After all if a company makes a strategic decision, [...]

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We need medical decision management not just electronic medical records

March 21, 2012

An article on electronic medical records in the New York Times caught my eye recently. In this article was the comment:
Computerized patient records are unlikely to cut health care costs and may actually encourage doctors to order expensive tests more often, a study published on Monday concludes.
Now I don’t know specifically what about the specific [...]

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Smarter Analytics Leadership Summit Opening #smarteranalytics

March 20, 2012

Steve Mills kicked off the IBM Smarter Analytics Leadership Summit. Business Analytics matter, he says, as shown by the focus of CEOs (8 out of 10 expect complexity to increase, enterprises applying analytics are more successful etc). The need for analytics is pervasive, with every industry seeing a massive expansion in the volume of data [...]

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Decision Management Systems Platform Technologies online now

March 20, 2012

Our new report on Decision Management Systems Platform Technologies has been available for download for a while now and thousands of you have downloaded it. To make it even easier to access (the PDF does not require a registration even) we have made it available online in the main report webpage – just scroll down [...]

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Live Event: Process Excellence: A Route to Better Business (Baltimore)

March 19, 2012

[ April 18, 2012; 5:30 am to 9:30 am. ] I am speaking at a series of IBM/Information Week events this quarter on “Process Excellence: A Route to Better Business.”  The seventh is in Baltimore, MD on April 18 and the main session starts at 8:30am ET. I will be kicking off the session with “BPM and Decision Management for Smarter, Simpler and More Agile [...]

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Live Event: Process Excellence: A Route to Better Business (Orlando)

March 19, 2012

[ April 17, 2012; 5:30 am to 9:30 am. ] I am speaking at a series of IBM/Information Week events this quarter on “Process Excellence: A Route to Better Business.”  The sixth is in Orlando, FL on April 17 and the main session starts at 8:30am ET. I will be kicking off the session with “BPM and Decision Management for Smarter, Simpler and More Agile [...]

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Live Event: Process Excellence: A Route to Better Business (Long Beach)

March 19, 2012

[ April 12, 2012; 8:30 am to 12:30 pm. ] I am speaking at a series of IBM/Information Week events this quarter on “Process Excellence: A Route to Better Business.”  The fifth is in Long Beach, CA on April 12 and the main session starts at 8:30am PT. I will be kicking off the session with “BPM and Decision Management for Smarter, Simpler and More [...]

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Live Event: Process Excellence: A Route to Better Business (St Louis)

March 18, 2012

[ April 10, 2012; 5:30 am to 9:30 am. ] I am speaking at a series of IBM/Information Week events this quarter on “Process Excellence: A Route to Better Business.”  The fourth is in St Louis, MO on April 10 and the main session starts at 8:30am ET. I will be kicking off the session with “BPM and Decision Management for Smarter, Simpler and More [...]

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Optimization and simulation in Decision Management Technologies

March 15, 2012

As you probably know by now, we have released the first version of our Decision Management Systems Platform Technology report. This report is available free for download from http://www.decisionmanagementsolutions.com/decision-management-technology. This version of the report focuses on four key areas (outlined in the webinar we gave recently and available in our archive here). One of these [...]

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Documenting decisions separately from use cases

March 14, 2012

There is a nice article over on Modern Analyst on documenting decisions separately from use cases in which Mark Monteleone lays out the case for this. As he says:
I do propose making decisions visible. By visible, I mean aseparate and explicit step for each decision being made. These steps help the developer identify where possible alternate and exception [...]

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