The Decision Model: A Business Logic Framework Linking Business and Technology (IT Management)

In the current fast-paced and constantly changing business environment, it is more important than ever for organizations to be agile, monitor business performance, and meet with increasingly stringent compliance requirements. Written by pioneering consultants and bestselling authors with track records of international success, The Decision Model: A Business Logic Framework Linking Business and Technology provides a platform for rethinking how to view, design, execute, and govern business logic. The book explains how to implement the Decision Model, a stable, rigorous model of core business logic that informs current and emerging technology. The authors supply a strong theoretical foundation, while succinctly defining the path needed to incorporate agile and iterative techniques for developing a model that will be the cornerstone for continual growth. Because the book introduces a new model with tentacles in many disciplines, it is divided into three sections: Section 1: A Complete overview of the Decision Model and its place in the business and technology world Section 2: A Detailed treatment of the foundation of the Decision Model and a formal definition of the Model Section 3: Specialized topics of interest on the Decision Model, including both business and technical issues The Decision Model provides a framework for organizing business rules into well-formed decision-based structures that are predictable, stable, maintainable, and normalized. More than this, the Decision Model directly correlates business logic to the business drivers behind it, allowing it to be used as a lever for meeting changing business objectives and marketplace demands. This book not only defines the Decision Model and but also demonstrates how it can be used to organize decision structures for maximum stability, agility, and technology independence and provide input into automation design. Contents 6 Foreword: Business Rules and the Real World 8 Preface and Acknowledgments 12 About the Authors 24 Contributors' List 26 About the Contributors 28 SECTION I: THE DECISION MODEL IN CONTEXT 34 Chapter 1. Why the Decision Model? 36 Chapter 2. An Overview of the Decision Model 46 Chapter 3. The Business Value of Decision Models 70 Chapter 4. Changing the Game: BPM and BDM 96 Chapter 5. SOA and the Decision Model 124 Chapter 6. How the Decision Model Improves Requirements, Business Analysis, and Testing 136 Chapter 7. Getting Started 172 SECTION II: THE DECISION MODEL IN DETAIL 198 Chapter 8. The Structural Principles 200 Chapter 9. The Declarative Principles 244 Chapter 10. The Integrity Principles 264 Chapter 11. At a Glance: The Decision Model and the Relational Model 304 Chapter 12. The Decision Model Formally Defined 334 SECTION III: COMMENTARIES 350 Chapter 13. Enterprise Architecture: Managing Complexity and Change 352 Chapter 14. Opportunities in Enterprise Architecture 362 Chapter 15. Service-Oriented Architectures 392 Chapter 16. Specifications, Standards, Practices, and the Decision Model 418 Chapter 17. Integrating the Decision Model with BPMN 454 Chapter 18. The Case for the Physical Decision Model 460 Chapter 19. Enterprise Decision Management and the Decision Model 474 Chapter 20. Introducing the Businesss Decision Maturity Model 488 Chapter 21. The Decision Model and Enterprise 2.0: Enabling Collaboration 514 Chapter 22. A Management Perspective 526 Chapter 23. Better! Cheaper! Faster! 534 Bibliography 540 Index 544