Issue 11812: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither (bmm-rtf) Source: TIBCO (Mr. Paul Vincent, pvincent(at)tibco.com) Nature: Uncategorized Issue Severity: Summary: At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any “issue” is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of “Decision Table” that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their “execution” (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is “yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation”. I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Resolution: Revised Text: Actions taken: December 11, 2007: received issue Discussion: End of Annotations:===== ubject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:06:26 -0800 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Thread-Index: Acg8L3pZjZTl3pqxQ2epXFZ2VKfAYQ== From: "Paul Vincent" To: Cc: , "James Taylor" X-OriginalArrivalTime: 11 Dec 2007 21:06:27.0405 (UTC) FILETIME=[B1CFD7D0:01C83C39] At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any .issue. is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of .Decision Table. that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their .execution. (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is .yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation.. I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules From: "Andy Evans" To: "Paul Vincent" , Cc: , "James Taylor" Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:44:01 -0000 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - zencphosting02.zen.co.uk X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - omg.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - xactium.com X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any .issue. is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of .Decision Table. that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their .execution. (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is .yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation.. I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:22:56 -0800 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Thread-Index: Acg9JCcSuFKw9ypJRU61ahAT3ZzKXwAoBgBA Priority: Non-Urgent From: "Paul Vincent" To: "James Taylor" , "Andy Evans" Cc: , X-OriginalArrivalTime: 13 Dec 2007 20:22:59.0456 (UTC) FILETIME=[F42DE800:01C83DC5] Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Taylor [mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:42:18 +0100 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Thread-Index: Acg/v53nR85/41hYTTCN7vCTQo1pSABjjBpA From: "LONJON Antoine" To: "Andy Evans" , "Paul Vincent" , "James Taylor" Cc: , I agree with Andy that the main place for decisions in the BMM is in the area of assessment. It also means that the .assessment. facility doesn.t belong only to the BMM and can also be used in many architecture planning .decisions.. The assessment itself is a kind of process, but as Andy said, the important part of it in the BMM is its recording. Antoine From: Andy Evans [mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:41 AM To: Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Yes, we are getting interest, particularly in the area of risk management. A combination of BMM for making assessments and a formal way of recording the decisions made would be a powerful combination. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: James Taylor ; Andy Evans Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Taylor [mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management **********************************IMPORTANT*********************************** The content of this email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please return it to our postmaster immediately and delete it from your system. WARNING: Although MEGA has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this email, MEGA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments. ****************************************************************************** X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.0.0.16 Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:54:45 -0600 To: "LONJON Antoine" , "Andy Evans" , "Paul Vincent" , "James Taylor" From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Cc: , This is proving an interesting discussion. I believe clear distinctions should be made among the following kinds of 'decisions': * Planning judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments. * Planning decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). * Operational business decisions. The BMM has no *internal* concept for this idea for the same reason it has no *internal* placeholder for Business Process or Organizational Unit -- they are external to any *plan*. Of course, since business plans can reference Operational Business Decisions, just as they can reference Business Processes or Organizational Units, it would probably make some sense to also include Operational Business Decision as a reference point in BMM (as for the former concepts). I agree with what I understand to be Paul's sentiments that the concept Operational Business Decision ... * Should be part of any Business Model. * Provides an important 'top-down' idea to give Production Rules a more solid business perspective. However, I wonder if that doesn't mix levels(?). I would also note ... * Just saying "Decision" is inevitably going to be ambiguous (e.g., is it operational, tactical or strategic?) * Operational Business Decisions can be formalized and managed even if no formal Business Process exists (i.e., there may be great value in managing the decision apart from any predefined Business Process). * There will be disagreement as soon as any specific definition for Operational Business Decision is proposed (e.g., is some *action* always assumed?) Just my 2cents ... Ron At 02:42 AM 12/18/2007, LONJON Antoine wrote: I agree with Andy that the main place for decisions in the BMM is in the area of assessment. It also means that the .assessment. facility doesn.t belong only to the BMM and can also be used in many architecture planning .decisions.. The assessment itself is a kind of process, but as Andy said, the important part of it in the BMM is its recording. Antoine From: Andy Evans [ mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:41 AM To: Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Yes, we are getting interest, particularly in the area of risk management. A combination of BMM for making assessments and a formal way of recording the decisions made would be a powerful combination. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: James Taylor ; Andy Evans Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Taylor [ mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management **********************************IMPORTANT*********************************** The content of this email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please return it to our postmaster immediately and delete it from your system. WARNING: Although MEGA has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this email, MEGA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments. ****************************************************************************** X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-5 X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 3674.60984.bm@omp209.mail.sp1.yahoo.com DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Subject:To:Cc:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Message-ID; b=p0I67b1fCDQDManCN1Rf+uLlPEwneZu+EJasUBzC19QfHaZ2uF0lU2T+Tuk2e4bSB6c7JVFP/fRqp0YABsZNRb8Ge1s7vWbyRezZNYySyWYiVLgVwnqfTN0yC7GZl0Zn3aEzEQAlaGqO/G0sQKQEufV2QNFu+Mjnved/sh0RQcI=; X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/818.31 YahooMailWebService/0.7.158.1 Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:23:57 -0800 (PST) From: Allan Kolber Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither To: "Ronald G. Ross" , LONJON Antoine , Andy Evans , Paul Vincent , James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org, lgoldberg@kpiusa.com "* Planning Judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments." Yes, definitely. "* Planning Decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). " Yes, as long as Means gets extended to include Advice.. "* Operational Business Decisions." I'm not clear why Operational Business decisions and Planning Decisions are not just two kinds of Business Decisions, making Operational Business Decision just another kind of Means. This also obviates the Internal/External issue, avoids having some decisions in and some decisions out, simplifying the model. Allan Kolber ----- Original Message ---- From: Ronald G. Ross To: LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 5:54:45 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither This is proving an interesting discussion. I believe clear distinctions should be made among the following kinds of 'decisions': * Planning judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments. * Planning decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). * Operational business decisions. The BMM has no *internal* concept for this idea for the same reason it has no *internal* placeholder for Business Process or Organizational Unit -- they are external to any *plan*. Of course, since business plans can reference Operational Business Decisions, just as they can reference Business Processes or Organizational Units, it would probably make some sense to also include Operational Business Decision as a reference point in BMM (as for the former concepts). I agree with what I understand to be Paul's sentiments that the concept Operational Business Decision ... * Should be part of any Business Model. * Provides an important 'top-down' idea to give Production Rules a more solid business perspective. However, I wonder if that doesn't mix levels(?). I would also note .... * Just saying "Decision" is inevitably going to be ambiguous (e.g., is it operational, tactical or strategic?) * Operational Business Decisions can be formalized and managed even if no formal Business Process exists (i.e., there may be great value in managing the decision apart from any predefined Business Process). * There will be disagreement as soon as any specific definition for Operational Business Decision is proposed (e.g., is some *action* always assumed?) Just my 2cents .... Ron At 02:42 AM 12/18/2007, LONJON Antoine wrote: I agree with Andy that the main place for decisions in the BMM is in the area of assessment. It also means that the .assessment. facility doesn.t belong only to the BMM and can also be used in many architecture planning .decisions.. The assessment itself is a kind of process, but as Andy said, the important part of it in the BMM is its recording. Antoine From: Andy Evans [ mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:41 AM To: Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Yes, we are getting interest, particularly in the area of risk management. A combination of BMM for making assessments and a formal way of recording the decisions made would be a powerful combination. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: James Taylor ; Andy Evans Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules From: James Taylor [ mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management **********************************IMPORTANT*********************************** The content of this email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please return it to our postmaster immediately and delete it from your system. WARNING: Although MEGA has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this email, MEGA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments. ****************************************************************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.0.0.16 Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:02:50 -0600 To: Allan Kolber , LONJON Antoine , Andy Evans , Paul Vincent , James Taylor From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org, lgoldberg@kpiusa.com At 08:23 PM 12/18/2007, Allan Kolber wrote: "* Planning Judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments." Yes, definitely. "* Planning Decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). " Yes, as long as Means gets extended to include Advice.. "* Operational Business Decisions." I'm not clear why Operational Business decisions and Planning Decisions are not just two kinds of Business Decisions, making Operational Business Decision just another kind of Means. This also obviates the Internal/External issue, avoids having some decisions in and some decisions out, simplifying the model. Well, that's worth looking at. I'm not necessarily opposed. Of course, it would help if we actually had a definition of "Operational Business Decision" so we could be sure we knew what we're actually talking about ... Ron Allan Kolber ----- Original Message ---- From: Ronald G. Ross To: LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 5:54:45 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither This is proving an interesting discussion. I believe clear distinctions should be made among the following kinds of 'decisions': * Planning judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments. * Planning decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). * Operational business decisions. The BMM has no *internal* concept for this idea for the same reason it has no *internal* placeholder for Business Process or Organizational Unit -- they are external to any *plan*. Of course, since business plans can reference Operational Business Decisions, just as they can reference Business Processes or Organizational Units, it would probably make some sense to also include Operational Business Decision as a reference point in BMM (as for the former concepts). I agree with what I understand to be Paul's sentiments that the concept Operational Business Decision ... * Should be part of any Business Model. * Provides an important 'top-down' idea to give Production Rules a more solid business perspective. However, I wonder if that doesn't mix levels(?). I would also note .... * Just saying "Decision" is inevitably going to be ambiguous (e.g., is it operational, tactical or strategic?) * Operational Business Decisions can be formalized and managed even if no formal Business Process exists (i.e., there may be great value in managing the decision apart from any predefined Business Process). * There will be disagreement as soon as any specific definition for Operational Business Decision is proposed (e.g., is some *action* always assumed?) Just my 2cents .... Ron At 02:42 AM 12/18/2007, LONJON Antoine wrote: I agree with Andy that the main place for decisions in the BMM is in the area of assessment. It also means that the .assessment. facility doesn.t belong only to the BMM and can also be used in many architecture planning .decisions.. The assessment itself is a kind of process, but as Andy said, the important part of it in the BMM is its recording. Antoine From: Andy Evans [ mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:41 AM To: Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Yes, we are getting interest, particularly in the area of risk management. A combination of BMM for making assessments and a formal way of recording the decisions made would be a powerful combination. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: James Taylor ; Andy Evans Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules From: James Taylor [ mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management **********************************IMPORTANT*********************************** The content of this email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please return it to our postmaster immediately and delete it from your system. WARNING: Although MEGA has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this email, MEGA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments. ****************************************************************************** Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:29:59 -0800 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Thread-Index: AchB5l2J3THNrENsT5+dCUMgR1jRGgAOkZtA From: "Pete Rivett" To: "Allan Kolber" , "Ronald G. Ross" , "LONJON Antoine" , "Andy Evans" , "Paul Vincent" , "James Taylor" Cc: , Paul wrote, in original email {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} I.ll need a lot of persuading that this is something that is broken or needs clarification in BMM 1.0 . hence to me it is properly part of a BMM v2 RFP. Pete From: Allan Kolber [mailto:allanbkolber@yahoo.com] Sent: 18 December 2007 18:24 To: Ronald G. Ross; LONJON Antoine; Andy Evans; Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither "* Planning Judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments." Yes, definitely. "* Planning Decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). " Yes, as long as Means gets extended to include Advice.. "* Operational Business Decisions." I'm not clear why Operational Business decisions and Planning Decisions are not just two kinds of Business Decisions, making Operational Business Decision just another kind of Means. This also obviates the Internal/External issue, avoids having some decisions in and some decisions out, simplifying the model. Allan Kolber ----- Original Message ---- From: Ronald G. Ross To: LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 5:54:45 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither This is proving an interesting discussion. I believe clear distinctions should be made among the following kinds of 'decisions': * Planning judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments. * Planning decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). * Operational business decisions. The BMM has no *internal* concept for this idea for the same reason it has no *internal* placeholder for Business Process or Organizational Unit -- they are external to any *plan*. Of course, since business plans can reference Operational Business Decisions, just as they can reference Business Processes or Organizational Units, it would probably make some sense to also include Operational Business Decision as a reference point in BMM (as for the former concepts). I agree with what I understand to be Paul's sentiments that the concept Operational Business Decision ... * Should be part of any Business Model. * Provides an important 'top-down' idea to give Production Rules a more solid business perspective. However, I wonder if that doesn't mix levels(?). I would also note .... * Just saying "Decision" is inevitably going to be ambiguous (e.g., is it operational, tactical or strategic?) * Operational Business Decisions can be formalized and managed even if no formal Business Process exists (i.e., there may be great value in managing the decision apart from any predefined Business Process). * There will be disagreement as soon as any specific definition for Operational Business Decision is proposed (e.g., is some *action* always assumed?) Just my 2cents .... Ron At 02:42 AM 12/18/2007, LONJON Antoine wrote: I agree with Andy that the main place for decisions in the BMM is in the area of assessment. It also means that the .assessment. facility doesn.t belong only to the BMM and can also be used in many architecture planning .decisions.. The assessment itself is a kind of process, but as Andy said, the important part of it in the BMM is its recording. Antoine From: Andy Evans [ mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:41 AM To: Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Yes, we are getting interest, particularly in the area of risk management. A combination of BMM for making assessments and a formal way of recording the decisions made would be a powerful combination. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: James Taylor ; Andy Evans Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules From: James Taylor [ mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management **********************************IMPORTANT*********************************** The content of this email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please return it to our postmaster immediately and delete it from your system. WARNING: Although MEGA has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this email, MEGA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments. ****************************************************************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. From: "Andy Evans" To: "Pete Rivett" , "Allan Kolber" , "Ronald G. Ross" , "LONJON Antoine" , "Paul Vincent" , "James Taylor" Cc: , Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:37:19 -0000 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - zencphosting02.zen.co.uk X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - omg.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - xactium.com X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: I agree, I don't think it is broken. This is about making BMM more general, which is not a RTF issue. We're starting to see some traction for BMM, so my view is it would be better to wait until there is significant concrete feedback from users of BMM products before making big changes. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Pete Rivett To: Allan Kolber ; Ronald G. Ross ; LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 9:29 AM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Paul wrote, in original email {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} I.ll need a lot of persuading that this is something that is broken or needs clarification in BMM 1.0 . hence to me it is properly part of a BMM v2 RFP. Pete From: Allan Kolber [mailto:allanbkolber@yahoo.com] Sent: 18 December 2007 18:24 To: Ronald G. Ross; LONJON Antoine; Andy Evans; Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither "* Planning Judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments." Yes, definitely. "* Planning Decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). " Yes, as long as Means gets extended to include Advice.. "* Operational Business Decisions." I'm not clear why Operational Business decisions and Planning Decisions are not just two kinds of Business Decisions, making Operational Business Decision just another kind of Means. This also obviates the Internal/External issue, avoids having some decisions in and some decisions out, simplifying the model. Allan Kolber ----- Original Message ---- From: Ronald G. Ross To: LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 5:54:45 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither This is proving an interesting discussion. I believe clear distinctions should be made among the following kinds of 'decisions': * Planning judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments. * Planning decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). * Operational business decisions. The BMM has no *internal* concept for this idea for the same reason it has no *internal* placeholder for Business Process or Organizational Unit -- they are external to any *plan*. Of course, since business plans can reference Operational Business Decisions, just as they can reference Business Processes or Organizational Units, it would probably make some sense to also include Operational Business Decision as a reference point in BMM (as for the former concepts). I agree with what I understand to be Paul's sentiments that the concept Operational Business Decision ... * Should be part of any Business Model. * Provides an important 'top-down' idea to give Production Rules a more solid business perspective. However, I wonder if that doesn't mix levels(?). I would also note .... * Just saying "Decision" is inevitably going to be ambiguous (e.g., is it operational, tactical or strategic?) * Operational Business Decisions can be formalized and managed even if no formal Business Process exists (i.e., there may be great value in managing the decision apart from any predefined Business Process). * There will be disagreement as soon as any specific definition for Operational Business Decision is proposed (e.g., is some *action* always assumed?) Just my 2cents .... Ron At 02:42 AM 12/18/2007, LONJON Antoine wrote: I agree with Andy that the main place for decisions in the BMM is in the area of assessment. It also means that the .assessment. facility doesn.t belong only to the BMM and can also be used in many architecture planning .decisions.. The assessment itself is a kind of process, but as Andy said, the important part of it in the BMM is its recording. Antoine From: Andy Evans [ mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:41 AM To: Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Yes, we are getting interest, particularly in the area of risk management. A combination of BMM for making assessments and a formal way of recording the decisions made would be a powerful combination. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: James Taylor ; Andy Evans Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules From: James Taylor [ mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management **********************************IMPORTANT*********************************** The content of this email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please return it to our postmaster immediately and delete it from your system. WARNING: Although MEGA has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this email, MEGA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments. ****************************************************************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at air812.startdedicated.com From: "Larry Goldberg" To: "'Andy Evans'" , "'Pete Rivett'" , "'Allan Kolber'" , "'Ronald G. Ross'" , "'LONJON Antoine'" , "'Paul Vincent'" , "'James Taylor'" , "'Barbara von Halle'" Cc: Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 19:27:26 -0500 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 12.0 Thread-Index: AchCI7W2iQS42FbZT12UeIEXxPj8mgOn3vZg In response to this thread, we have put together our thoughts on some of these issues at KPI, and they follow: KPI defines a Business Decision as a judgment about a business concept or business concept attribute based upon business criteria, and which the business is interested in managing. That.s because the Business Decision (as a means) *supports the achievement of* objectives and (as an means) *has enforcement level effected by* tactic and (as an external element) *guides* process. (see attached pdf for how the Decision serves as both a means and an external element) We recognize that there are business decisions at every level in the organization. James Taylor and Neil Raden (in their book, Smart Enough Systems) categorize them thusly: a) High-value, low-volume decisions Example: M&A, capital investment, strategic market positioning b) Medium-value, medium-volume decisions Example: Product development & pricing, customer segmentation & targeting c) Low-value, high-volume decisions Example: Loan approval, customer cross-sell offer, customer upgrade request, prospect marketing offer assignment. 3. We also recognize that there are Business Decisions that support planning and those that support operations. 4. Regardless of the categorization, we can demonstrate that all Business Decisions may be organized into a well-defined model (structure and principles) because all have similar characteristics. We believe that Business Decisions, as judgments, are comprised of or represented as business rules. Further, we have experienced great success using a Decision Model as a logical organizing principle for Business Rules. 5. We believe that the current placeholder in the BMM for Business Rules would more appropriately be a placeholder for Business Decision as a higher level asset to manage; failing that, there should at least be a placeholder for Business Decisions. We believe that Business Decisions are the principal means by which policy becomes manageable and implementable in Business Process. 6. Similarly we believe it important to separate business logic (as a declarative asset) from business process (as a necessarily procedural asset), such that the process (or event) model does not attempt to model declarative business logic. In this way process and logic may be managed separately, and with tools and techniques appropriate to each. Larry Goldberg Managing Partner Knowledge Partners International, LLC. We Take the Decision out of Process. Phone: +1-919-234-9844 Fax: +1-866-652-6605 Email: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Web: www.kpiusa.com From: Andy Evans [mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 4:37 AM To: Pete Rivett; Allan Kolber; Ronald G. Ross; LONJON Antoine; Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither I agree, I don't think it is broken. This is about making BMM more general, which is not a RTF issue. We're starting to see some traction for BMM, so my view is it would be better to wait until there is significant concrete feedback from users of BMM products before making big changes. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Pete Rivett To: Allan Kolber ; Ronald G. Ross ; LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 9:29 AM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Paul wrote, in original email {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} I.ll need a lot of persuading that this is something that is broken or needs clarification in BMM 1.0 . hence to me it is properly part of a BMM v2 RFP. Pete From: Allan Kolber [mailto:allanbkolber@yahoo.com] Sent: 18 December 2007 18:24 To: Ronald G. Ross; LONJON Antoine; Andy Evans; Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither "* Planning Judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments." Yes, definitely. "* Planning Decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). " Yes, as long as Means gets extended to include Advice.. "* Operational Business Decisions." I'm not clear why Operational Business decisions and Planning Decisions are not just two kinds of Business Decisions, making Operational Business Decision just another kind of Means. This also obviates the Internal/External issue, avoids having some decisions in and some decisions out, simplifying the model. Allan Kolber ----- Original Message ---- From: Ronald G. Ross To: LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 5:54:45 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither This is proving an interesting discussion. I believe clear distinctions should be made among the following kinds of 'decisions': * Planning judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments. * Planning decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). * Operational business decisions. The BMM has no *internal* concept for this idea for the same reason it has no *internal* placeholder for Business Process or Organizational Unit -- they are external to any *plan*. Of course, since business plans can reference Operational Business Decisions, just as they can reference Business Processes or Organizational Units, it would probably make some sense to also include Operational Business Decision as a reference point in BMM (as for the former concepts). I agree with what I understand to be Paul's sentiments that the concept Operational Business Decision ... * Should be part of any Business Model. * Provides an important 'top-down' idea to give Production Rules a more solid business perspective. However, I wonder if that doesn't mix levels(?). I would also note .... * Just saying "Decision" is inevitably going to be ambiguous (e.g., is it operational, tactical or strategic?) * Operational Business Decisions can be formalized and managed even if no formal Business Process exists (i.e., there may be great value in managing the decision apart from any predefined Business Process). * There will be disagreement as soon as any specific definition for Operational Business Decision is proposed (e.g., is some *action* always assumed?) Just my 2cents .... Ron At 02:42 AM 12/18/2007, LONJON Antoine wrote: I agree with Andy that the main place for decisions in the BMM is in the area of assessment. It also means that the .assessment. facility doesn.t belong only to the BMM and can also be used in many architecture planning .decisions.. The assessment itself is a kind of process, but as Andy said, the important part of it in the BMM is its recording. Antoine From: Andy Evans [ mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:41 AM To: Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Yes, we are getting interest, particularly in the area of risk management. A combination of BMM for making assessments and a formal way of recording the decisions made would be a powerful combination. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: James Taylor ; Andy Evans Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules From: James Taylor [ mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management **********************************IMPORTANT*********************************** The content of this email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please return it to our postmaster immediately and delete it from your system. WARNING: Although MEGA has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this email, MEGA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments. ****************************************************************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. BMM Possibility With Decision Place Holder.pdf image001174.gif X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-5 X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 111640.38354.bm@omp207.mail.sp1.yahoo.com DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Subject:To:Cc:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Message-ID; b=X/LkXxOhGfEU5Ls/qjmEjAMhhWRHPJZvzeDRlVkocMR1sc+RouQxZJzWMyG9OMWPyPYDAS1rYNOCbvlcUgUU8YhhwDMIQ2Kxu7DW0ibu/HDsYgIG7TtUtei3bz1cpld7hmpzrRNWk9ws7Z5YyqAiQ9syAuNLmXNQAijPjW27Xj8=; X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/818.31 YahooMailWebService/0.7.158.1 Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 19:58:55 -0800 (PST) From: Allan Kolber Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither To: Larry Goldberg , Andy Evans , Pete Rivett , "Ronald G. Ross" , LONJON Antoine , Paul Vincent , James Taylor , Barbara von Halle Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org The idea of adding Business Decision as another kind of Directive with Business Policy seems reasonable as a possible extension to the BMM and worth discussing. Please note that just because some meta-concepts, such as Busines Rule, Organization, and Business Process are defined by other meta-models, doesn't mean these concepts are not in the BMM. In particular, Business Rule, though defined in SBVR, is definitely in the BMM as a kind of Directive. In point of fact, Business Rule existed as a central meta-concept in the BMM before we even started working on what became SBVR. Allan Kolber ----- Original Message ---- From: Larry Goldberg To: Andy Evans ; Pete Rivett ; Allan Kolber ; Ronald G. Ross ; LONJON Antoine ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor ; Barbara von Halle Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org Sent: Sunday, January 6, 2008 7:27:26 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither In response to this thread, we have put together our thoughts on some of these issues at KPI, and they follow: KPI defines a Business Decision as a judgment about a business concept or business concept attribute based upon business criteria, and which the business is interested in managing. That.s because the Business Decision (as a means) *supports the achievement of* objectives and (as an means) *has enforcement level effected by* tactic and (as an external element) *guides* process. (see attached pdf for how the Decision serves as both a means and an external element) We recognize that there are business decisions at every level in the organization. James Taylor and Neil Raden (in their book, Smart Enough Systems) categorize them thusly: a) High-value, low-volume decisions Example: M&A, capital investment, strategic market positioning b) Medium-value, medium-volume decisions Example: Product development & pricing, customer segmentation & targeting c) Low-value, high-volume decisions Example: Loan approval, customer cross-sell offer, customer upgrade request, prospect marketing offer assignment. 3. We also recognize that there are Business Decisions that support planning and those that support operations. 4.. Regardless of the categorization, we can demonstrate that all Business Decisions may be organized into a well-defined model (structure and principles) because all have similar characteristics. We believe that Business Decisions, as judgments, are comprised of or represented as business rules. Further, we have experienced great success using a Decision Model as a logical organizing principle for Business Rules. 5. We believe that the current placeholder in the BMM for Business Rules would more appropriately be a placeholder for Business Decision as a higher level asset to manage; failing that, there should at least be a placeholder for Business Decisions. We believe that Business Decisions are the principal means by which policy becomes manageable and implementable in Business Process. 6. Similarly we believe it important to separate business logic (as a declarative asset) from business process (as a necessarily procedural asset), such that the process (or event) model does not attempt to model declarative business logic. In this way process and logic may be managed separately, and with tools and techniques appropriate to each. Larry Goldberg Managing Partner Knowledge Partners International, LLC. We Take the Decision out of Process. Phone: +1-919-234-9844 Fax: +1-866-652-6605 Email: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Web: www.kpiusa.com From: Andy Evans [mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 4:37 AM To: Pete Rivett; Allan Kolber; Ronald G. Ross; LONJON Antoine; Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither I agree, I don't think it is broken. This is about making BMM more general, which is not a RTF issue. We're starting to see some traction for BMM, so my view is it would be better to wait until there is significant concrete feedback from users of BMM products before making big changes. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Pete Rivett To: Allan Kolber ; Ronald G. Ross ; LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 9:29 AM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Paul wrote, in original email {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} I.ll need a lot of persuading that this is something that is broken or needs clarification in BMM 1.0 . hence to me it is properly part of a BMM v2 RFP. Pete From: Allan Kolber [mailto:allanbkolber@yahoo.com] Sent: 18 December 2007 18:24 To: Ronald G. Ross; LONJON Antoine; Andy Evans; Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither "* Planning Judgements about Influencers. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments." Yes, definitely. "* Planning Decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). " Yes, as long as Means gets extended to include Advice.. "* Operational Business Decisions." I'm not clear why Operational Business decisions and Planning Decisions are not just two kinds of Business Decisions, making Operational Business Decision just another kind of Means. This also obviates the Internal/External issue, avoids having some decisions in and some decisions out, simplifying the model. Allan Kolber ----- Original Message ---- From: Ronald G. Ross To: LONJON Antoine ; Andy Evans ; Paul Vincent ; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 5:54:45 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither This is proving an interesting discussion. I believe clear distinctions should be made among the following kinds of 'decisions': * Planning judgements about Influencers.. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Assessments. * Planning decisions. In BMM terms, these should be understood (recorded) as Means (i.e., Strategies, Tactics, Business Policies, Business Rules). * Operational business decisions. The BMM has no *internal* concept for this idea for the same reason it has no *internal* placeholder for Business Process or Organizational Unit -- they are external to any *plan*. Of course, since business plans can reference Operational Business Decisions, just as they can reference Business Processes or Organizational Units, it would probably make some sense to also include Operational Business Decision as a reference point in BMM (as for the former concepts). I agree with what I understand to be Paul's sentiments that the concept Operational Business Decision ... * Should be part of any Business Model. * Provides an important 'top-down' idea to give Production Rules a more solid business perspective. However, I wonder if that doesn't mix levels(?). I would also note .... * Just saying "Decision" is inevitably going to be ambiguous (e.g., is it operational, tactical or strategic?) * Operational Business Decisions can be formalized and managed even if no formal Business Process exists (i..e., there may be great value in managing the decision apart from any predefined Business Process). * There will be disagreement as soon as any specific definition for Operational Business Decision is proposed (e.g., is some *action* always assumed?) Just my 2cents .... Ron At 02:42 AM 12/18/2007, LONJON Antoine wrote: I agree with Andy that the main place for decisions in the BMM is in the area of assessment. It also means that the .assessment. facility doesn.t belong only to the BMM and can also be used in many architecture planning .decisions.. The assessment itself is a kind of process, but as Andy said, the important part of it in the BMM is its recording. Antoine From: Andy Evans [ mailto:andy.evans@xactium.com] Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:41 AM To: Paul Vincent; James Taylor Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Yes, we are getting interest, particularly in the area of risk management. A combination of BMM for making assessments and a formal way of recording the decisions made would be a powerful combination. Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: James Taylor ; Andy Evans Cc: bmm-rtf@omg.org ; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: RE: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither Presumably the motivation for Banks is to minimize risk / maximize operational profit (or growth . clearly this would be mapped into means, ends etc). The strategy might be to segment credit applications using certain criteria. The values of those criteria would not be part of the motivation, but are the operational rules in the decisions in the operational processes. But I think James. case, that the decisions are clearly v valuable viz the motivation, simply implies that the decision model is a very important sibling of the motivation model. Andy: are Xactium getting any interest in going down to the decision level? I ask because clearly the BRMS vendors have gone the other way (prod rules up to decision artifacts), and any .standard. decision model would have to meet .in the middle. (IMHO). That would be a good excuse for a Business Model (tool) Interoperability Working Group, but I.ll leave that for others to propose J Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules From: James Taylor [ mailto:jamet1234@gmail.com] Sent: 13 December 2007 01:05 To: Andy Evans Cc: Paul Vincent; bmm-rtf@omg.org; lgoldberg@kpiusa.com Subject: Re: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither hmmm What is a bank is using BMM to model its strategy. It's credit decision, a highly operational decision taken thousands of times a day, is clearly impacted by its strategy. Might it not make sense for it to have "Assess Credit Risk" or "Assign Credit" in a BMM model, linked to other elements etc and then ultimately implemented as a decision in a more detailed model? Not every operational decision is so impactful but some are... JT On Dec 12, 2007 3:44 AM, Andy Evans wrote: Paul, I agree. BMM would explain why you made that decision, and what the decision relates to, e.g. a process and or a strategy, but you would not use BMM to model decisions per se. I do see however a need to be able to make decisions about plans, so a decision might say, if this is true, then we will adopt this plan rather than that one. Hence, a decision could also be an influencer in BMM. I wonder if the converse is also true. Should we have a way of modeling the fact that the achievement of a End in BMM can be the source of an influencer, e.g. a decision. In which case, the outcome of one plan could become an influencer on another plan. Cheers, Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Vincent To: bmm-rtf@omg.org Cc: lgoldberg@kpiusa.com ; James Taylor Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:06 PM Subject: BMM RTF Issue: Should BMM include business rules, decisions, both, or neither At the BMI meeting on 10Dec07/Burlingame, there was a discussion on decision modeling and its relationship to existing modeling needs and standards. An action from the meeting was to raise the question of whether business decisions per se should be defined in BMM alongside, or instead of, business rules, or whether business motivation per se should be independent of business decisions (and/or business rules). {This was considered a possible issue for a BMM v2 RFP, but I am raising it with the RTF on the basis that it is up to the RTF to determine whether any "issue" is for a future version or not.} [From my understanding of BMM v1.2, processes are defined outside of BMM, and probably decisions are related more to processes and are guided by business rules / driven by policies.] Caveat: this is going to be difficult to answer without a formal definition of a decision model. And I am not going to define one at this stage of discussions! J However, it is probably safe to assume that a Decision Table (which I define as a table of conditional elements with some action as a conclusion, rather than the fact definition type of "Decision Table" that Donald was telling me is defined as a part of SBVR) is an instance of a Decision Model. And that you invoke decision tables (and services) in process activities in order to direct processes (and services). But decisions may be defined separately from process, of course, although their "execution" (manual or automated) context is probably always going to be in a process of some kind. Disclaimer: this issue may be subject to revision as the terminology is refined. 2 cents of Comment: I think the answer is "yes, decisions are related to motivation but are not part of motivation". I will leave to others the discussion on whether (SBVR type) business rules are part of motivation or a simply related to motivation. Cheers Paul Vincent TIBCO | ETG/Business Rules -- James Taylor james@smartenoughsystems.com Author, with Neil Raden, of "Smart (Enough) Systems" Companion site at http://www.smartenoughsystems.com ebizQ blog at http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management **********************************IMPORTANT*********************************** The content of this email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you have received this email in error please return it to our postmaster immediately and delete it from your system. WARNING: Although MEGA has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this email, MEGA cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this email or attachments. ****************************************************************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! 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