Customer Reviews

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

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a very interesting read. It is about a new type of modeling called the decision model. The decision model has the potential to add great value to the software development process. It is intended to bridge the gap between the business users and the technical team on any given project.

This book does an excellent job of explaining the decision model by putting it into its proper context. The book also does a great job of showing how the decision model would integrate with common industry standard UML diagrams used today.

The authors show how the decision model can be integrated with the traditional business process model using BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation), use case models, the TOGAF process, and the Zachman Framework.

The major downside to the book is that tooling has not been developed to support the decision model. I did contact the authors and ask what tools they were using. They gave me the same list of the few listed in the book. IBM has a plug-in and New Wisdom has something in the works. Not having any tools available to make decision models will hurt the potential this book has for making a big impact on the current industry standards for gathering requirements.

I have been trying to make a UML Profile in SPARX EA, but just can't get the time to complete it. It will be a rather complete and should probably be created as a plug-in instead.

If tooling, that is cheap tooling, becomes available I think the Decision Model has great potential, until that happens it is great theory, but that will be all it is. SPARX EA and Visio templates will be a must for it to reach the masses that I deal with.

Because the book does such a great job of explaining the decision model I have a hard time dinging it because of the lack of tools. It is very thorough and a very good read. The theory is sound and has a ton of potential. I highly recommend reading this book for the theory itself, and if modeling tools become available you will be a step ahead in the industry.

A good overview of a complex topic. The KPI team appear to be well on their way to applying structure to the complex world of business decisions and rules.

In the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DODAF) and spinoffs MODAF, DNDAF this segment of views is addressed in a Business Rules Model (OV-6a) and partially as a Systems Rules Model (SV-10a). The decision model defined within the book is a good first step towards offering a framework to aid in the development and refinement of these products.

The graphical notations offered in the book are rather complex and still need further refinement to become more "business user" friendly.

I look forward to seeing this framework evolve and reading their next book.

I ordered this book twice and both copies were missing Chapter 3 - so, I would NOT advise buying a copy. If you do, check for Chapter 3 when received as you may need to return it!

As one who always embraces a new modeling technique with an open mind - only to toss most aside when they can't be applied effectively in the real world - I immediately saw that something was different about this technique based only on the articles and white papers on the KPI website. It almost seemed too simple to be true. Where were all the symbols that would require a new Visio template or a large-scale software application. So, I gambled the cost of the book on Amazon. And, it sure paid off! The concepts are presented in a way that is conducive to self-study. Integration into your current SDLC is explained. My two biggest take-aways: 1) harnessing a very large business rule repository by modeling the decisions that are made based on those rules and other decisions and 2)integrating decision models into my use cases. I put the concepts into practice immediately and can safely say that decision models are a permanent part of my BA toolkit.

More in this book review: [...] basically this is an interesting framework to model and formalize decisions which are well suited for rule-based automation (and the book has enough details to make it a reference manual which most of the users of the model may not need). On the other hand, the title is slightly misleading as it makes the concept appearing more generic and universal than it really is in the book. Indeed, not all decisions we take can be instrumented or automated as business rules.

The authors call for "decision aware" business process models. We now critique our business process models to reveal, "what are the decisions?". The resulting process models are more complete yet simplified. The authors call for maintaining the decision elements (the decision model) outside the process model in the same way we manage business rules outside the use case. We now devote more effort to the actual analysis and less to housekeeping tasks. In JAD sessions and reference material research we now focus on "what are the decisions" from a top-down perspective and link each harvested business rule to a decision. The focus on decisions in the analysis phase aligns with an application design that separates orchestrations from decisions. The result is greater transparency and alignment of application design with business analysis. Have purchased a copy for each of our fifteen business analysts and conducting monthly inhouse seminars centered on the book.

This book is a candidate to become historical. It proposes a very promising concept that overcomes the current difficulties to incorporate business rules in common system architecture and design concepts. The concept is simple and pragmatic: besides the common practice of modeling processes and objects, the "Decision Model" adds to that a method to model and specify business logic. The method consists of a notation convention, a decision-table based specification method, and a set of principles.

The book has a clear structure and explains the concept on highlights and in details.

The book is recommended to anyone who is struggling with the specification of business logic on a information-analysis level instead of a coding level.

I am a Certified Business Analysis Professional and I also teach business analysis for a large university. I use this book as required reading in the post graduate course I teach. I found this book to be essential and use the concepts and techniques to make the complex decisions immediately understandable in a repeatable and testable way.

This book is a huge breakthrough in concept and a revolution in practice.

I read this book and then developed a decision model for a process model from a past project. It worked well and provided insight to business logic not noted (missing) in the process model. Using the decision model provided value added to my analysis. I will definitely augment my process models with decision models in the future. Great book, my thanks to the authors.