Rules and Decision Management

The large enterprise can think about how to systematize their business processes and the rules that they use to make decisions.  This has often been difficult for the midsize to smaller business.  The systems have not existed to help these businesses think through how their business should work well to grow and be profitable. These businesses have their own internal expertise, but do not typically have the internal resources for other specialized knowledge.

In the large enterprise we used methods called expert systems.  We interviewed dozens of experts and then placed their expertise in sets of rules.  These were then combined with analytical methods to calculate and adjust the results of particular choices to optimize results based on the rules .  This created a simulation of a specific set of  business decisions.  When we did not have internal experts available for a set of decision rules, we went outside to interview experts that had additional domain knowledge we could readily insert into the process.

A recent discussion with a Mid Size business led me to take another look at this area.  The business had some quantitative methods that calculated results, but did not have a means to implement their business rules. I needed a better way to generate these rules from flowcharts of their processes.

I had previously looked at the Ilog JRules capability for delivering decision rules.  Now re-branded as Operational Decision Management.   Also to be seen on the  IBM Decision Management page on Facebook.  Check this out as a method to implement rules within business processes.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines  of a smarter planet. More on that here: http://goo.gl/S6P7m