Several recent publications have popularized the topic of "Decision Modeling" — the modeling of business decision logic for and by business users. The OMG has just released an RFP for a Decision Model and Notation (DMN) specification, but that document says little about how DMN might relate to SBVR and BPMN, and there are many open questions. How do SBVR rules relate to decisions? Is there just one or are there multiple decisions per SBVR rule? Is there more to say about how SBVR and DMN relate to BPMN? This month, Mark Linehan and Christian de Sainte Marie provide their perspective on DMN and how it is positioned in the context of the SBVR and BPMN specifications.
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The most-asked question at business rules conferences is "How many rules do you have?" — typically asked of someone presenting the results of his business rules project. Usually, the person asking the question wants some indication of the complexity, size, and maturity of the project at hand and believes the answer to this question will help. In this month's issue of the 'Rule Observatory', Silvie Spreeuwenberg shares her observations on why both the question and the answer may not get to the heart of the matter.
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The most-asked question at business rules conferences is "How many rules do you have?" — typically asked of someone presenting the results of his business rules project. Usually, the person asking the question wants some indication of the complexity, size, and maturity of the project at hand and believes the answer to this question will help. In this month's issue of the 'Rule Observatory', Silvie Spreeuwenberg shares her observations on why both the question and the answer may not get to the heart of the matter.
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How many times have you heard someone complain that ‘things are so complicated because of the many exceptions in our organization’? In last month's 'Rule Observatory', Silvie Spreeuwenberg examined what it takes to describe exceptions as business rules. Now, with our exceptional cases described by 'just some more rules', Silvie takes a closer look at what options a software developer has to program such rules for automated software support.
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Now that most business rule tools, methods, and models also contain a tabular form of business decision rules, it is a good idea to revisit the fundamentals of good decision table design, as laid out more than a decade ago and now again coming into their own. In this month's column, Jan Vanthienen reminds us of the striking similarity between decision tables and databases, and points to earlier work on how good decision table design and good database design are subject to similar concerns, such as consistency, non-redundancy, normalization, etc.
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Procedural Logic in the Reasoning Process
By Drs. Silvie Spreeuwenberg

This column is the next in a series that will provide the reader with best practices on using or choosing a rules engine. The target audience for this series is typically the user of a rule engine, i.e., a programmer or someone with programming skills. In this month's issue of the 'Rule Observatory', Silvie Spreeuwenberg describes a general approach for using procedural logic during the inference processing.
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What about Methods in Rules?
By Drs. Silvie Spreeuwenberg

This column is the next in a series that provides the reader with best practices on using or choosing a rules engine. The target audience for this series is typically the user of a rule engine, i.e., a programmer or someone with programming skills. All coding examples should be read as pseudo-code and should be easily translated to a specific target syntax for a rule engine that supports backward and forward chaining in an object-oriented environment. In this month's issue of the 'Rule Observatory', Silvie Spreeuwenberg discusses the question of when are method-calls useful in combination with logic expressed as declarative rules.
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Hooray, SBVR has arrived!
By Dr. Sjir Nijssen

On December 11, 2007, SBVR became an official OMG specification -- an OMG standard, just like the successful predecessor standards UML and XMI. In this month's issue of the 'Semantics for Business', Sjir Nijssen shares his perspective on this important milestone.
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Rule History and Versioning (Part 3)
By Drs. Silvie Spreeuwenberg

In this month's issue of the 'Rule Observatory', Silvie Spreeuwenberg presents the third of her series on best practices in using or choosing a rules engine. Last time she discussed an alternative, more efficient solution to her original rule versioning problem. That declarative solution was one that could be used when rules are versioned on a small number of dates. In this column she discusses a strategy for dealing with rule versions that is efficient and works if there are lots of different new versions of rules.
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50 Ways to Represent your Rule Sets
By Jan Vanthienen

As the number of business rules we model increases, effective means to capture, visualize, and manage entire sets of rules at a time become more important for the business. A significant number of rules share the same subject, have similar evaluation terms, or similar outcomes. Although each business rule can (and should) be considered on its own, there are good reasons to study an entire set of rules. The representation of a set of rules is important for various quality reasons -- specifying the rules, verifying the specification, and maintaining the rules. In his inaugural column, Jan Vanthienen illustrates how not every representation is equally suited for each of these purposes.
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BUSINESS RULE FAQs
a one-stop source for the basics of business rules
Be sure to check out this spectacular online reference. The Business Rules FAQs is a one-stop source for the basics of business rules. FAQ Editor: Drs. Silvie Spreeuwenberg. A FREE service of the European Regional SubCommunity.
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BUSINESS RULES JOURNAL
The Official Online Publication Of The Business Rules Community
Don't miss a single issue of The Business Rules Journal, the acclaimed online publication of the Business Rules Community. Each month this online publication is available free of charge to all registered BRCommunity.com members.
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RULE FORUM
A Community Roundtable For Business Rule Professionals
Got a question you just can't find an answer to? Looking for more information on the Business Rules Manifesto? Or perhaps you're just looking for a place to talk about business rules with like minded professionals? Be sure to check out the online Rule Forum, an online place for to ask all your questions. FREE access is available to all registered members of the Business Rules Community.
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