Legacy Modernization

Rules and Process Management for Insurers

October 28, 2008

Chubb has been working with Blaze Advisor to automate a number of decisions. They began with specialty lines underwriting (automated renewals), claims severity calculation and work queue assignment. Current focus is on integrating predictive models and some legacy modernization.
The automated renewals project reduced the time to make renewal rule changes from 3-6 months of IT [...]

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First Look – ILOG and Relativity for legacy modernization

July 21, 2008

The folks at ILOG and Relativitiy recently announced a new integration between their products – Legacy IT Modernization enabled by ILOG and Relativity Technologies Business Rules Solutions. I got a chance to chat with them today about what was new and different in this latest attempt to bring legacy modernization and business rules together. Relativity’s [...]

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Are programmers the problem?

June 23, 2008

There was more discussion in the blogosphere about the James McGovern COBOL is Evil post – COBOL is not evil, but COBOL programmers are. Now I already posted a response to James’ post (Why don’t you replace COBOL with something useful – not Java) but this new post made me think. I should say that [...]

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Why don’t you replace COBOL with something useful (not Java)

June 13, 2008

Joe McKendrick in his Eye on the Enterprise blog had a post on legacy modernization – Time to Cut COBOL from Life Support in which he referenced a post by James McGovern The mainframe is not evil, but COBOL is… in which James says
that there’s no reason why aging COBOL apps can’t be replaced with [...]

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Making meals from your mainframe leftovers

May 28, 2008

When I read Ade McCormack’s book The IT Value Stack I was struck by many sections (as you can see from the review) and one thread in his narrative prompted this post. He recommends avoiding software development (because it is expensive and high risk). Ht talked about the importance of sweating the technology (making the [...]

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After EDM – the future of business

April 11, 2008

The second part of my response to Dave Wright’s comment is about the kind of business one can run after one adopts EDM. To do this, let’s predicate the discussion a company that has adopted Enterprise Decision Management as a core management principle, implemented the technology and development approaches that support it and had long [...]

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Live from IMPACT – Customer Panel on Driving Alignment

April 8, 2008

After the keynote it is back to the other end of the MGM Grand to attend a customer panel on business/IT alignment. Amy Wohl is the host and she blogs here. BTW I may not finish the whole session as I have to go sign the book at the bookstore at the show. I am [...]

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COBOL Lives! In the business rules space at least

February 20, 2008

Well I guess it had to happen – ILOG joined Fair Isaac in releasing a COBOL code generator for its flagship rules product. I have not yet seen it in action (I am sure I will at DIALOG next week) but I have talked with product management at ILOG and seen the public information. [...]

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How to prioritize the use of EDM in a recession

February 8, 2008

Last post in my series today – how to prioritize your use of EDM in a recession. As with any effort to prioritize EDM, the first thing to do is identify the decisions that make the difference. This means finding the micro decisions that are often hidden in your processes as well as correctly identifying [...]

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Reducing fixed IT costs with EDM

February 7, 2008

This second to last post in the series is focused on the specific ability of Enterprise Decision Management or EDM to reduce fixed IT costs. This comes in two main “flavors” – using EDM to reduce maintenance costs through legacy modernization and using EDM to reduce the risks and costs of outsourcing. Both legacy modernization [...]

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A curious reader asks…

December 7, 2007

One of my favorite things to do on my blog is respond to questions from readers. To make it easy to find these going forward I have added a new category – Reader Questions. Email me (james at smartenoughsystems.com) if you have a question you’d like me to answer on the blog. Anyway, this week [...]

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Live from Business Rules Forum – From Business Rules to Enterprise Decisioning

October 23, 2007

Ron Ross kicked off the main sessions today with his keynote “From Business Rules to Enterprise Decisioning“. He opened by saying that it is easy to think that everything that can be automated, has been. Yet there is a clear gap between what our existing systems can do and what we need. Part of this [...]

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Book Review – IT Risk

August 15, 2007

IT Risk: Turning Business Threats into Competitive Advantage
I was lucky enough to get a pre-release copy of IT Risk: Turning Business Threats into Competitive Advantage by George Westerman and Richard Hunter. The book approaches IT risk not as a technical issue but as a business and management one with potentially serious consequences. As businesses increasingly are there [...]

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