Requirements

AllAnalytics recently asked its readers “What is the greatest danger spot for analytics projects?” and the results are pretty clear. Here’s a snapshot (the percentages have been pretty stable): Top of the heap is “Identifying the Business Problem” with over 40% Then it’s a close run thing between “Data sourcing” and “Putting data into action”, both at 20% [...]

I am giving a tutorial on Decision Modeling with DMN at this year’s Building Business Capability conference and there’s still time to register for it. Decision modeling is fast becoming a must know technique for business analysts and business architects. Decision modeling aligns processes, business rules and data in the most optimal way possible. When [...]

We have a set of online training coming up in July: Introduction to Decision Management to introduce the key concepts and terminology of Decision Management and provide a framework for successful business rules and analytic projects Decision Modeling with DMN to learn how to model requirements using the Decision Model and Notation standard, the cornerstone technique for [...]

There is a great article from Bain and Company from 2013 that Elena Makurochkina (@elenamdata) pointed me to today – Infobesity: The enemy of good decisions. This is not only a fabulous phrase – infobesity feels viscerally correct as soon as you see it – but a great article too. Some quotes: Companies have overindulged in information. Some [...]

One of the most persistent problems with decision modeling in my experience is the tendency of people to think of decision modeling as a one-time requirements effort. Many teams are convinced that building a decision model using the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard (white paper here) is going to help them with their business rules [...]

We are running our regularly scheduled, and highly reviewed, Decision Modeling with DMN training again July 19-21, 9:30am-11:30am Pacific each time. Decision modeling with the new Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard is fast becoming the definitive approach for building more effective processes and for specifying requirements for business rules and predictive analytic projects. With decision modeling, [...]

I am giving a webinar on Decision Modeling with DMN for RedHat JBoss BRMS Thursday May 26th at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific in which I will demonstrate the new integration capability of DecisionsFirst Modeler Enterprise Edition with RedHat JBoss BRMS. In the webinar I will Introduce Decision Modeling with DMN Discuss the new integration of DecisionsFirst Modeler [...]

As Jan and I work on our book, Available now! Real-World Decision Modeling with DMN, we have been discussing some of the common misconceptions about decision modeling that we’ve encountered among adopters. This is going to be one of the chapters in the book, in which we analyze misguided applications of decision modeling and their consequences, but [...]

I am giving a tutorial at this year’s Building Business Capability Conference on Decision Modeling with DMN Decision modeling is fast becoming a must know technique for business analysts and business architects. Decision modeling aligns processes, business rules and data in the most optimal way possible. When analytics or business rules need to be integrated [...]

One of the interesting and useful things about the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard for decision models is how it handles the data required by a decision. Simply put, a Decision in DMN may have any number of Information Requirements and these define its data dependencies – the Decision requires this information to be available if the [...]

One of the fun things going on over at the Decision Management Community is a series of challenges based on various real or real-ish problems. For each the site encourages folks to develop and submit a decision model to show how the problem described could be solved. This month there was one on Port Clearance Rules [...]

Jan Purchase of LuxMagi and I are working away on our new book, Available now! Real-World Decision Modeling with DMN and one of the questions we have been asking ourselves is who we are aiming the book at – who builds decision models? Jan had a great post on Who Models Business Decisions? recently to address this question and I wanted [...]

Besides working on Real World Decision Modeling with DMN  I recently contributed a piece on the use of decision modeling for framing predictive analytics to The Big Analytics Book, a book being produced by the folks at AnalyticsWeek. AnalyticsWeek rounded up 60+ thought leaders in analytics, including yours truly, and got us all to write a [...]

As you may have noticed I am working on a new book – Available now! Real-World Decision Modeling with DMN – with Jan Purchase. Yesterday Jan had a great blog post – Why Decision Modeling? (In 1000 Words). Jan makes some great points, emphasizing the value of  decision modeling with DMN in: Transparency of the logic Separation  of [...]

I am pleased to announce a new Decision Table Modeling online training offering taught by Professor Jan Vanthienen, a leading decision table expert. We are running a pilot of this class February 2-4 an you can get details, and a great price, here. To give you a taste of Jan’s approach, here’s a guest article by him. [...]

We are running our regularly scheduled, and highly reviewed, Decision Modeling with DMN training again March 1-3, 9:30am-11:30am Pacific each time. Decision modeling with the new Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard is fast becoming the definitive approach for building more effective processes and for specifying requirements for business rules and predictive analytic projects. With decision modeling, [...]

I presented on the lessons we have learned deploying decision management and decision modeling at scale at various clients, specifically some large financial institutions. We have some case study like papers available (contact us for a copy) and here are the key takeaways: Decision Modeling Widely Accessible, Collaborative Lots of people can build and use [...]

Jan Vanthienen of the University of Leuven presented on business and decision analysis. We visualize the business using process, data and rules models he says to visualize it, to automate it and to eliminate confusion and ambiguity. But there are concerns about just modeling processes. In particular if one tries to model the whole of one’s [...]

I got a chance to hear Roger Burlton and Sasha Aganova of the Process Renewal Group talk about a recent case study of theirs concerning risk and management and processes. This is a hot topic of course with new regulations and new requirements for financial services firms. Compliance with these risk management regulations, though, can’t be seen [...]