Enterprise Decision Management - a Weblog

Live from InterACT - Bernhard Nann's Keynote

(Posted by guest blogger, James Taylor) Back to this blog for a session on Fair Isaac's product road map presented by Bernhard Nann, Fair Isaac's CTO. Fair Isaac is in the middle of a major evolution in their decision management...

Enterprise Decision Management and the future of application development

(Posed by guest blogger, James Taylor) I read an interesting paper by Joseph Feiman of Gartner today - Prepare for a Paradigm Shift to Automated Application Development. This is described as "maverick" research but I thought it was pretty compelling....

Call for Presentations - the new EDM Summit

How are you integrating business rules and analytics? How are you adding intelligence to your business processes? How are you putting analytics to work in your operational systems? How, in other words, are you using Enterprise Decision Management (EDM) to...

Adaptive Business Applications with EDM

(Posed by guest blogger, James Taylor) I have been thinking about adaptive applications recently and about what makes an application adaptive (see my twitter stream for instance). This seems like an important topic as people throw "business agility" and "agile...

Some thoughts on BI and analytics in retail banking

(Posted by guest blogger, James Taylor) Late last year the folks at Datamonitor published Business Intelligence in Retail Banking (Review Report). I finally got to read it today and it is, overall, a very interesting paper and I recommend it...

Making it actionable with EDM

(Posted by guest blogger, James Taylor) The Performance Guys had a post today titled "But is it "Actionable?" in which they discuss the general trend towards what is called "pervasive Business Intelligence" - that is, BI everywhere and for everyone....

Gartner’s 2008 Predictions Include Bright Future for Enterprise Decision Management

Gartner recently issued two “Predicts: 2008” reports highlighting their expectations for Enterprise Architecture and the Business Process Management Suites (BPMS) Market. Both recognize noteworthy and highly complementary trends reflecting the value of Enterprise Decision Management (EDM), particularly Business Rules Management Systems (BRMSs) supporting EDM principles.

EDM and interesting business technology trends

(Posted by guest blogger, James Taylor) I saw this interesting report on the McKinsey Quarterly "Eight business technology trends to watch" and, as many McKinsey Quarterly reports do, it made me want to write something by way of follow-up. It...

While Forrester Envisions Consolidation for the 3 "Bs", it's Happening for Apps and BI Vendors

Cognos and Microstrategy are the two remaining independent Business Intelligence (BI) software giants following today’s news that SAP was purchasing Business Objects. Speculation was building online last week that a deal was in the works and in fact for much of this year since Oracle purchased Hyperion, such rumors have been the case.

But do you really need AI?

I saw this article in Dr Dobbs recently (thanks Mark) - AI: It's OK Again! by Michael Swaine. Michael begins with a discussion of the "seemingly genetic propensity to overpromise" prevalent in AI circles and then gives a nice update...

8 ways to improve captive finance with EDM

Dave Wright had a question for me about the role of EDM in captive finance organizations - that is a finance organization owned by and associated with a particular manufacturer. Dave works for such a company for a large agriculture/construction/landscape...

Decisions, information, decoupling and automation

Andrew McAfee posted The Great Decoupling last week and Ross Mayfield followed up with Decoupling Decision Rights and Decentralization. These posts discussed the decoupling of information from decision-making. They assert that the decreasing cost of getting information around an organization...

Getting in the loop

Great article on the Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action (OODA) loop by Dag von Lubitz in DM Review. Dag nicely summarizes and explains the work of Col Boyd's OODA loop in the article and I would highly recommend the article to...

Nice article on operational analytics and EDM

Gib, who writes for the blog once in a while, wrote a nice piece on Making the Most of Operational Analytics with Enterprise Decision Management for DM Review. Enjoy. Technorati Tags: analytic application, analytics, BI, BI 2.0, business intelligence, DM...

TDWI says the most exciting part of Operational BI is Enterprise Decision Management (kinda)

Wayne Eckerson published a nice report for TDWI recently called "Best Practices in Operational BI: Converging Analytical and Operational Processes", which you can download from the TDWI site here (free registration required). It's a very interesting report and the summary...

If you think you need a Chief Analytics Officer, what you really need is a Chief Decision Officer

I saw this article in DM Review today - Building the Analytic Organization - in which Peter Graham lays out a case for a Chief Analytics Officer and how that role would be part of improving the use of analytics...

Analysis and creativity in decision-making

Scott Thurm recently wrote a piece in the WSJ Marketplace section - Now, It's Business By Data, but Numbers Still Can't Tell Future. He talked about the growing trend of trying to run companies more analytically, more "by the numbers",...

Using decision management to transform claims

Karen Pauli of Tower Group recently wrote Technology Direction in US P&C Insurance Claims Operations: Transforming a People Business (subscription required). This is a great paper and highly recommended for those of you thinking about how to improve your claims...

Useful posts on data mining

Craig Borysowich has some useful posts on his blog this week. He does nice little series on various topics and he recently completed a data mining series. Here are the links with some comments: Obtaining Management Support for Data Mining...

Getting support for data mining (and decision management)

Craig had a good post today - Obtaining Management Support for Data Mining and BI. I liked the post because he focused first on the business objective - the decision you are trying to improve - and only then on...

Data Mining, Predictive Analytics and Markets of 1

Two articles made me think about the application of enterprise decision management, EDM, in the world of customer experience. First, I saw the one Jeff Kaplan wrote - "Data Mining as a Service: The Prediction is Not in the Box"....

Treating customers right, even if it means firing them

I saw this post by Seth Godin today - Treating different customers differently - and noticed that the Analytical Engine had a post on the same topic - Firing Customers - and it made me think about treating customers "right"...

Technology and the changing face of insurance

Ian sent me this link - Safeco Launches Teensurance Tech Product - and I thought this was interesting as it shows how technology can impact insurance. The particular article is about a service offered whereby teenaged drivers' behavior can be...

Got MDM? You know EDM Better than you think

For some time now, I have recognized analogies between Enterprise Decision Management (EDM) and Master Data Management (EDM). They both share attributes such as the separation/abstraction of “inputs” from operational or analytical systems and recognition of these inputs as assets to be managed and available for reuse across the enterprise. It’s interesting to note also that both have impacts on analytical and operational systems, yet originated from different points of view. In the case of EDM, high volume operational decisions have historically been the focus, while MDM stems from problems in managing consistency in data warehouses.

What do people do with analytics?

Interesting little poll over on KD Nuggets today - readers were asked where they had applied data mining in the last 12 months. The top 5 were: CRM (26.1% of respondents) Banking (23.9%) Direct Marketing/ Fundraising (20.3%) Science (18.8%) Fraud...

Decision-centric business improvement

My buddies over at Big Sky Thinking had a great post today - Why Optimizing Decisions is the Most Important Thing You Can Do, Part II. They lay out a great, if simple, process for focusing in on the decisions...

Shameless commerce: Smart (Enough) Systems

As some of you know by now I have been working, with Neil Raden, on a new book. As the files shipped to the printers yesterday, I thought I would take the opportunity to shamelessly plug the book here on...

Cathedrals, Bazaars, Crowds, Ignorance and Predictive Analytics

A friend (thanks Ann) sent me a link to this Nicholas Carr article "The Ignorance of Crowds" in which he discussed Eric Raymond's seminal paper on open source called "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". For those of you who don't...

A reader's data mining question answered

One of my readers sent me a data mining question last week. He said that he had not been able to find any discussion about the statistical significance of a rule that comes out of a decision tree classifier. As...

Using enterprise decision management to make your pet healthier - really!

While this is somewhat a piece of shameless commerce, I could not resist pointing readers to this press release: VCA Antech to Become Exclusive U.S. Distributor of Fair Isaac FastPanel(TM) Diagnostics for Companion Animals. Yes, Fair Isaac and EDM can...

Decision Automation from TDWI

TDWI had a webinar today, that I missed but watched later, on Decision Automation - Embedding Analytics into Business Processes with Wayne Eckerson (TDWI) and Dan Graham (Teradata). This was a nice presentation that built on Wayne's predictive analytics report...

A White Paper on Customer Decision Engines

Ian pointed me to this white paper today - The Customer Decision Engine (free registration required). Unica published this about a year ago but I just saw it today. It's an interesting paper and prompted me to blog about this...

Tom Davenport and the business analytics concours

Some colleagues recently attended The Business Analytics Concours Research Summit at the Babson Executive Conference Center - Wellesley, MA. I bring this up both because I think it is an interesting program and because Tom Davenport and Jeanne Harris were...

Competing on Analytics - Book Review

DM Review just published a shorter version of my book review for Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning by Tom Davenport. You can read the original review here, buy the book here and comment about the review here!...

Why do you need Adaptive Control?

Why do you need Adaptive Control? - This Post What's a basic technology approach for Adaptive Control? What is Champion/Challenger? What is Experimental Design? How do I do Decision Analysis? The first issue to consider with Adaptive Control is why...

Using EDM to deliver Relationship-Based Pricing

Mary Pilecki at Forrester just published Turning Pricing Optimization Into Relationship-Based Pricing (subscription required) about using pricing optimization as part of a financial services institution's relationship strategy. The summary of the document says: Consumers are beginning to look at their...

Business Rules, Business Decisions, Intelligent Processes, Enterprise Decision Management

Two analyst reports and an article came together today to reinforce both the core concepts of enterprise decision management - EDM - and its timeliness. First there was When Rules Go Inside Out With BPM (subscription required) by Jim Sinur...

Is Operational BI an oxymoron?

Amit Chembukar and Prasanna Keny of Tata Consulting wrote Trends in Operational BI in BI Review. It's a nice article and they make some good points about the characteristics of the kinds of systems they discuss: Operational - delivering decisions...

Action "0" when building an analytic organization

I saw this article by Peter Graham "Building the Analytic Organization". Peter lays out some steps to create an analytic organization but I think he has failed to list the first one! Action "0" must be to establish why you...

A word about analytics

I was wandering around our R&D facility yesterday and saw a great sign Analytics simplify data to amplify its value Now I have no idea if this is original or a well-known analytic quote. Regardless, I think it is very...

Why Banks need to focus on "Growth Decisions"

I was meeting with an IDC Financial Insights analyst today, Rachel Hunt, and in the conversation she used the phrase "growth decisions". I really liked this as it seems to me that increasingly banks, and many other organizations, are going...

InterACT Lisbon - Conversational Machine

Final session of the conference is one of the highlights - Robert Hecht-Nielsen presenting about his work developing a conversational machine. This is a long-term research project that Robert runs at Fair Isaac working on building a machine that is...

InterACT Lisbon - Decision Optimization

Next up was a group of Fair Isaac folks introducing and discussing decision optimization using Fair Isaac's Strategy Science approach. In terms of Strategy Science the focus is on choosing an optimal set of decisions across a portfolio when there...

InterACT Lisbon - Making your modeling team world class

Last day of the conference and I am listening to Chisoo Lyons talk about building a world class analytic modeling team. Over the last few years Fair Isaac has been focusing less on developing models for customers and more on...

InterACT Lisbon - Building Scorecards with Model Builder

Final presentation for me this morning is Gerard Chrispie of HBOS - Halifax Bank of Scotland, the fourth largest bank in the UK with some 22M customers and assets of over $1Bn. Gerard presented on how HBOS is using Model...