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...

Blogging live from IBM's IMPACT

(Posed by guest blogger, James Taylor) I am going to be blogging live from a couple of days of the IBM IMPACT show and you can follow the posts over on my personal blog - www.smartenoughsystems.com/wp or through the RSS...

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....

BEA on Event Driven Architecture Sounds a lot like EDM

Yesterday BEA Systems released a white paper summarizing their findings of a customer study regarding Business Process Management (BPM). The paper is titled “The State of the BPM Market – Business and IT: Solving Process Problems Together.” BEA also culled through numerous analyst and other industry expert insights to narrow in on the key trends driving adoption of BPM related technologies. There were two especially notable items in the report that show an Enterprise Decision Management (EDM) approach to operational decision automation, connection and improvement is becoming an increasingly mainstream concept – even if the term EDM isn’t the label.

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...

EDM Helps Minimize Trade Offs Between Application Maintenance and Strategic Initiatives – So Says Forrester Research

While Enterprise Decision Management (EDM) is not called out specifically in Forrester Research’s January 28 report, “The State Of Enterprise Software Adoption: 2007 To 2008,” it describes issues top of mind among technology executives addressable with EDM technologies, such as Business Rules Management Systems (BRMSs). The report is based on results of a survey of 1,017 IT decision-makers in North American- and European-based enterprises.

Customer Interaction Management needs EDM

(Posted by guest blogger, James Taylor) It seems to be customer interaction week (month) on my blogs. Today I finished reading an article that prompted this post - Service-Oriented Customer Interaction Management by Ashutosh Roy of eGain. There was a...

SOA Patterns - your chance to contribute

(Posted by guest blogger, James Taylor) Thomas Erl is working on a new book of SOA patterns and is looking for suggestions and input. You can read about the project on www.soapatterns.com. In particular, those of you interested in decision...

Progressive Financial Services Firms Demonstrate the Value of Predictive Analytics; Decision Services Offer a Path for Others to Follow

Yesterday an article I wrote about Decision Services appeared in the online edition of DM Review’s December 2007 issue ("Decision Services: Pragmatic Real-Time Analytics"). In it, I describe how Decision Services, by providing a framework for managing both business rules and analytics, can pave the way toward adopting predictive analytics.

Process Management and Decision Management

(Posted by guest blogger, James Taylor) I posted a little piece on the potential unification of business processes and business rules on my other blog recently - Please don't just unify rules and process. This prompted some very interesting comments...

It’s OK to “ignore the man behind the (predictive analytics) curtain” with EDM

The title of this post includes a quote from the film, “The Wizard of Oz,” when Dorothy’s dog Toto draws back a curtain revealing the “real” wizard (a man) pulling levers and pushing buttons to illuminate a frightening hologram of a smoky and not too nice false wizard. The jig is up, and the wizard is exposed for what he is, just a man. If only the same could be said of the experts driving data mining and predictive analytic software in today’s leading companies.

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.

Insightful Hindsight on Forrester's 3 “Bs” Points to Need for EDM

While reading recent news in the Process Management section of Intelligent Enterprise today, I noticed a September 27, 2007 post by Sandy Kemsley titled “Forrester: Why BI, BPM and Rules Technologies Will Converge.” Sandy was part of a panel discussion at Forrester Research’s Technology Leadership Forum (Sept. 24-27) focused, in part, on the contents of a Forrester report issued to coincide with the event. I previously blogged about that report, titled “The Dynamic Business Applications Imperative,” by John Rymer and Connie Moore.

Decision Management at the Heart of Future Enterprise Applications, so Says Forrester Research

Respected technology prognosticators John Rymer and Connie Moore of Forrester Research just published a new paper titled, “The Dynamic Business Application Imperative” (September 24, 2007, For CIOs). Rymer and Moore envision a new generation of enterprise application that some IT organizations today are cobbling together in order to meet ever changing business, technical and marketplace requirements.

The Three Dimensions of Intelligent Business Processes

Today I read a September 21 Gartner Research note by Gareth Herschel titled, “The Role of Analytics in Adding Value to Business Processes.” As someone expert in analytics more so than Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Rules Management (BRMS), Gareth raises some important points to remember when discussing the role of analytics in business processes.

Live from ITARC - Making your systems smart (enough)

I presented today on Making your systems smart (enough). The slides are below and reference a number of elements from Smart (Enough) Systems. Technorati Tags: agility, architecture, BPMS, BRMS, business agility, business rules, decision management, decision service, decision-centric, EDM, enterprise...

Enterprise decision management and delivering agility

Mike Kavis had a post today "Built to change, Architected to last" in which he discussed a nice new concept from the folks over at BEA - Dynamic Business Applications. These, he says, have four characteristics: Built to change (flexible)...

Process transformation and decision management

Roeland Loggen had a nice post over on his blog today - BPM Suite as a component in a logical architecture. I liked his architecture except that I think the Decision Platform he identifies also needs to be able to...

Whole brained decision management

Joe McKendrick had an interesting post today - ‘Whole-brained’ enterprises need SOA: here are the numbers to prove it where he discussed a report from the BTM Institute on Business Technology Convergence (PDF here). While I agree with much of...

Decisions and the potential for agile services

I saw this post over on the Web Gambit today - How Agile is your Architecture? - where Karthik emphasizes the Agile Manifesto's Responding to change over following a plan. He is talking about architecture agility and says "After a...

Remember: Don’t Crush ‘Em, Restore ‘Em

The title of this posting is taken from a saying repeated at the conclusion of a cable television show about classic cars, and aptly summarizes the focus of this newsbit I saw today on DM Review’s website: “Major Software AG Customer Survey Reveals New Priorities for Legacy Systems”. Software AG, an infrastructure software provider, surveyed 180 of its clients to understand their views on legacy systems. The results cited in the article parallel the value of Business Rules Management Systems (BRMS) to legacy systems; all good news for Software AG and BRMS vendors, maybe less good news for application vendors trying to sell their latest wares.

Decisioning in a loosely-coupled process

Jack van Hoof had a great article today - How to implement a loosely coupled process flow (EDA). A great illustration of how to use a decision service to loosely couple. I have blogged about SOA/EDA and EDM before and...

“Smart Enough”…Processes

The June 2007 issue of DM Review features an interview with business process management (BPM) vendor Metastorm CEO Bob Farrell, titled “Process Intelligence.” Given Metastorm’s focus on BPM it isn’t surprising that Mr. Farrell has a process centric view of the world. Rather surprisingly though, it seems their business is experiencing trends similar to those developing around Enterprise Decision Management (EDM).

Live from EBRC - My presentation

Here is my presentation: Technorati Tags: analytic application, analytics, Blaze Advisor, BRMS, business rules, data mining, decision service, EBRC, EDM, enterprise decision management, Model Builder, predictive analytics, Smart (Enough) Systems, smartenoughsystems

Live from EBRC - Agility and Compliance

Last session at EBRC before today's high point (that would be my session), is Agility and Compliance require a combination of BPM/SOA, EDA and BRA by Jan Vanthienen, Leo Hermans and Wilfreid Lemahieu. They were missing Leo but got started...

SOA, BPM (and EDM) for Enterprise Applications

Bill Swanton and Ian Finley at AMR Research recently published "SOA and BPM for Enterprise Applications: A Dose of Reality" (subscription required). This paper considered the value of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and how it is to be found in business...

More on BPM - what about Decision Services?

Tulu Tanrikorur of New York Life wrote Business Process Management 101: The Basics of BPM and How to Choose the Right Suite over on Intelligent Enterprise. It's a nice summary of various approaches to considering BPM and related software. However,...

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...

What you need to know about Decision Services

A key tenet of Enterprise Decision Management is the automation of the operational decisions that drive your business. You need to identify operational decisions and automate them; you also need to separate them out from the rest of your applications...

"Blogging Live" from InterACT Lisbon: "How EDM Really Works"

"How EDM Really Works" at InterACT introduces the concepts of decision automation and predictive analytics.

Mitigating the risks of reuse with business rules

Dian over at BPM Enterprise had this post that led me to this piece on The RIsks and Rewards of Reuse by Marcia Kaufman of Hurwitz & Associates. Dian highlighted the problem of "Poor Process" as an issue from a...

Book Review: Business Rules Management and Service-Oriented Architecture

Ian Graeme's new book "Business Rules Management and Service-Oriented Architecture" is a fairly technical look at business rules, the technology of a business rules management system and patterns of using them. The book gives a fairly quick overview of SOA...

SOA, BPM and business users

Joe McKendrick's blog had an interesting post today on getting business users involved in application development. The problem is the difference perspectives needed for business and IT folks. Business people don't want to assemble applications, they want to run their...

Book Review: The Only Sustainable Edge

I recently heard John Hagel (who has a blog) present (at the webMethods conference) on the book he wrote with John Seely Brown, "The only sustainable edge". In the book John and John discuss how recent changes in the world...

New article on enterprise policy hubs today

I have a new article on BPM Institute today - Why you need an enterprise policy hub. It's an extract of my chapter from The Business Rules Revolution (which I reviewed here) so if you like it, buy the book....

Enterprise Decision Management and important IT trends

I saw this article in Baseline - The 30 Most Important IT Trends for 2007 - and it struck me how many of them pointed out the need for an enterprise decision management approach. Highlights included: Needing to focus on...

Posts from the webMethods conference

I have been at webMethods' conference this week and blogging from there. Here are the links if you want to check them out: Driving Business Transformation Through Process Improvement Innovation Driving Success – Albert Heijn Case Study Introducing webMethods Fabric...

Business Intelligence 2.0 and Enterprise Decision Management

I have been reading a few things on "BI 2.0" and it made me wonder about the phrase and about the differences, or similarities, between BI 2.0 and EDM. I know Charles Nicholls of SeeWhy and read his nice little...

Article on SOA and business rules

I recently wrote an article on SOA and business rules for Thomas Erl's new magazine website SOA Magazine. Thomas is well known as an author on SOA and the site has some great articles. You can subscribe to an RSS...