Five Reasons to Fire Your Rules Consultant

@jamet123 #decisionmgt © 2019 Decision Management Solutions
James Taylor, CEO
They call it a rule engine
They smush process and rules in one
project
They want to do rule harvesting
They want to use ORs, ELSEs,
ELSEIFs…Oh My!
They put off business user
enablement to phase 2
Five Reasons to Fire
Your Rules Consultant

@jamet123 #decisionmgt © 2019 Decision Management Solutions 2
Business Rules Management Systems WORK
Transparency Impact
Analysis
Collaboration Business User
Control
So why doesn’t everyone have one?

Too Many Consultants Use Them Poorly
1. They call it a rule engine
2. They smush process and rules in
one project
3. They want to do rule harvesting
4. They want to use ORs, ELSEs,
ELSEIFs…Oh My!
5. They put off business user

Fired or Hired?
Technical
Rule
Execution
Business
Decision
Management

They Call It A Rule Engine

They Call It A Rule Engine
 Original products were limited
 Rule engine was critical
 Performance was a challenge
 Knowing how to “tweak” the engine was
key to success
 Now products are robust
 Algorithm improvements
 Design improvements
 Hardware improvements
 Engine performance is (almost)
always good enough “out of the box”

In rules, management is to execution
as three parts out of four.
Napoleon Bonaparte
In war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.
Napoleon’s notes entitled “Observations on Spanish Affairs,”
August 27, 1808 at the palace of Saint-Cloud

Business Rules Management Systems Have Many Elements
Testing and
Debugging
Technical Rule
Management
Non-technical
Rule
Management
Impact
Analysis
Data
Management
Verification
and Validation
Deployment
Rule
Repository
Decision Service
Generated
Code
Runtime Rule
Package
Business Rules
Engine
Logging
A rule engine is just a small piece of the
complete software stack that is a Business
Rules Management System. Most of the
system is focused on the management,
verification, testing and simulation of the
rules not their execution.

A BRMS is part of a Decision Management Technology Stack
Performance
Management
Enterprise Platform
Data
Infrastructure
Application Context
Decision Service
Decision
Performance
Monitoring
Business Process
Management
Legacy
Applications
Business Rules
Management System
Decision Modeling
Predictive
Analytics
ML
A decision service encapsulates business rules, advanced analytics and even AI technology to deliver
automated decisions to your application context. Leveraging your data, its behavior is defined by a
decision model that also connects its results to business performance for effective decision monitoring.
Packaged
Applications
AI

They Smush Process And Rules In One Project

Decision Are Not Processes
 Processes
 Flow oriented across roles
 Often sequential
 Interconnected to outcomes
 Stable in ‘what’
 Analytics about the process
 Decisions
 Declarative
 Hierarchical
 Logically “dense”
 Changeable
 Analytics change the decision
 Different Stakeholders
 Different Perspectives
 Different Measures

External Data
Big Data
Build Decision Services
Business
Rules
Analytics,
ML and AI
• Business Rules are quick
to change
• Good for regulations,
policies, flash updates
• Less insight-rich than
analytics
• Analytics are insight-rich
but often opaque,
especially ML and AI
• Good for patterns,
trends, categorization
• Must be fed new data and
continuously improved
A decision service
encapsulates business rules,
analytics, ML and AI to
deliver automated decisions
to your application context.
Data about business outcomes and
decisions made is integrated with
external data to close the loop and
improve both rules and analytics

Processes And Decisions Work Better Separately
Process is simplified, robust
Independent process & decision changes
Decisions are reusable
Decisions are easily modeled
Analytics drive decision-making
Process is complex, brittle
Decisions only evolve with process
Hard to share decisions
Hard to model decisions precisely
Hard to apply analytics
SeparateCombined

They Want To Do Rule Harvesting

Rule Harvesting
 Make a long list of all the rules
 Rules at various levels
 Mostly very technical
 By looking at code
 And talking to IT
 Treat all rules the same
 Unnecessary documentation
 Too much (or little) detail
 Put them in a bucket
 Hard to track source
 Not clear who owns each one
 Not clear what each is for

Decision Modeling:
A Business-Centric, DecisionsFirst Journey To A BRMS
Policy Type Claim Date After
Start Date
Contestable Period
Group, Individual <1y, >1y, <2y, >2y Yes/No
1 Group <1y Yes
2 Group >1y No
3 Individual <2y Yes
4 Individual >2y No
Contestable Period
U

Standards-based Decision Models
Show What’s Involved In Digital Decisions
Knowledge
required
Structure of
decision-making
Data required
• Decision models are best
developed using the
Decision Model and
Notation (DMN) standard.
• This defines a notation
showing decisions, their
decomposition into
reusable sub-decisions, the
data each decision needs
and the knowledge
required to define business
rules or analytics for each.
Decision to be
made

Key Benefits of Decision Modeling
• Much faster than traditional
approaches
• In 1 hour developed understanding
“that would have taken 10”
Rapid
• Clarifies real requirements
• Often experienced SMEs learn
something from the modelEnlightening

Decision Models Structure Lists Of Rules
▪ Lists of business rules often group
unlike things
▪ For instance, these lists of rules for
high alert factors and medium alert
factors seem fine
▪ But when allocated out to the
decision model they are easier to
manage
▪ Plus it is clear the lists are
incomplete once they are modeled

Decision Models Can Be Built Iteratively
 Build high level models
 Pick a decision
 Model it in detail
 Then model business rules
 Repeat for other decisions
▪ Using decision models to
structure BRMS projects
allows them to be developed
and deployed incrementally
▪ This supports agile
development and allows for
check points in waterfall
development efforts
▪ Decision modeling is
naturally iterative

They want to use ORs, ELSEs, ELSEIFs…Oh My!

Decision Models Break Down Rules Into Simple Tables
▪ Decision models prioritize
representing business rules as
decision tables
▪ Because the decision model breaks
down all the complexity, each
decision table is simple and self-
contained
▪ Other representations can be used
but decision tables are by far the
most business friendly

Decision Models Structure Even Very Complex Decisions
▪ Decision model diagrams are
views on an underlying model
▪ This allows very complex
models to be broken down and
then displayed clearly using
multiple diagrams

They Put Off Business User Enablement To Phase 2

They Put Off Business User Enablement To Phase 2
 Phase 1
 IT will write the rules
 IT will manage the rules
 IT will test the rules
 IT will deploy the rules
 Phase 2
 Business users will manage the rules
 Business users will simulate the rules
 IT will test the rules
 IT will deploy the rules
 Business as usual
 Technical perspective
 Testing not simulation

Business User Enablement
 Phase 1 or Phase Never!
 Maintenance not Creation
 Complete environment
 Continuous Improvement
▪ Track decision outcomes
▪ Find the decisions that need to change
▪ Change the rules for these decisions
▪ Confirm the impact of the change is as expected

Clear decision model
for all
IT-managed
Transformation
Multiple business rule
lists and documents
Business
IT-Centric
Business-Centric
Business / IT Collaboration
Make Business Rules Development Business-Centric
BRMS
Separate executable
business rules
One set of executable
business rules
BRMS
▪ Excluding IT from business
rules writing can feel like
business empowerment
▪ But a business-only rule
writing approach requires IT
to transform these rules into
something executable
▪ A “purple” approach that has
business and IT work
together on the decision
model is more effective and
more business-centric in
reality

Five Reasons To Fire Your Rules Consultant
1. They call it a rule engine
2. They smush process and rules in
one project
3. They want to do rule harvesting
4. They want to use ORs, ELSEs,
ELSEIFs…Oh My!
5. They put off business user

Adopt a DecisionsFirst Approach to Your BRMS
1. Focus on Rule Management not execution
2. Build managed, reusable Decision Services
3. Capture decisions first, not business rules
4. Use a decision model to manage complexity
5. Engage the business from the start

Thank You
 More resources for success with
Business Rules
 bit.ly/MaximizeBizRules
 Decision Management Solutions
works with clients to improve
their business by applying
business rules and analytic
technology to automate and
improve decisions.
 We can help you deliver the
value of a Business Rules
Management System with our
DecisionsFirst approach.

Thank You
For more on
Decision Management, go to:
decisionmanagementsolutions.com
@jamet123 #decisionmgt © 2019 Decision Management Solutions
If you have further questions or comments:
James Taylor
CEO, Decision Management Solutions
james@decisionmanagementsolutions.com
+1 650 400 3029

Five Reasons to Fire Your Rules Consultant

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