A Buzzword Like ‘Decision’ that Covers Everything May Soon Cover Nothing
One thing that concerns me about ‘decision’ or ‘decision management’ is that everything potentially becomes a decision. Software vendors love it when complex problems can be reduced to a single buzzword. Engineers of true business solutions should hate it. I’m sure I’ll be accused of negativism, so for the record, let me say that top down analysis of operational business decisions is extremely useful, either along with, or outside of, business processes. We have a highly pragmatic approach for decision analysis based on ‘question charts’ (Q-Charts). We use it extensively to capture decision rules. But do I think that decision analysis is the most important part of delivering a winning business solution? Not by a long shot. Your strategy for the business solution is much more important. Even that’s not enough though – strategy only tells you why. We need business models that cover all aspects of a business solution (think what, how, where, who, and when). So no, it doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) all boil down to ‘decisions’ … unless by that you mean anything and everything. And what good is that? I’m always very careful to say ‘operational business decision’ instead of simply ‘decision’. Immediately that excludes governance decisions (e.g., creating a business policy) and strategy ‘decisions’ (as in MBA-school ‘business strategy’). That’s an important first narrowing of the field. Something else commonly mistaken for an operational business decision is a simulation of “what would happen if we did this operational task right now”. For example, let’s run a claim by all the behavioral business rules and see if the claim is acceptable before we do it for real. That’s simply a test, not a decision. That’s a second important narrowing of the field. Clearly we need a solid definition of what a decision is and isn’t in the context of business analysis. We define an ‘operational business decision’ as: a determination in day-to-day business activity requiring know-how or expertise; the resolving of a question by identifying some correct or optimal choice. To make such decisions you need decision rules (think classification or inference rules) that ‘map’ cases to outcomes. Decision rules are one type of definitional rule. The two types of business rules in SBVR are definitional rules and behavioral rules. Business capabilities do usually involve large numbers of decision rules, but they also always involve large numbers of behavioral rules. Behavioral rules are rules you can violate, like speeding through a school zone. There’s no decision to that … you either are or you aren’t speeding. Well, you may have made a personal decision to speed, but let me tell you, City Hall doesn’t care. Personal decisions – out of scope too, a third important narrowing of the field.Tags: decision analysis, decision logic, decision management, decision rule, decision rules vs. behavioral rules, decisioning, operational business decisions, Q-Charts, SBVR
Ronald G. Ross
Ron Ross, Principal and Co-Founder of Business Rules Solutions, LLC, is internationally acknowledged as the “father of business rules.” Recognizing early on the importance of independently managed business rules for business operations and architecture, he has pioneered innovative techniques and standards since the mid-1980s. He wrote the industry’s first book on business rules in 1994.