Decision management enables organizations to become decision-centric and as the result, they will be able to deliver quality business value, faster. However, it is critically important to realize that practicing decision management requires:

  1. The methodology to guide organizations on what to do and how to do it.
  2. The technology to support organizations ambition to manage any type of decisions

And in order to make decision management a success both methodology and technology must support a wide range of techniques and business decisions. And what that means is they should not limit to only operational decisions (leaving tactical and strategic decisions out) or only one type of decision automation such as business rules automation, machine learning, optimization, decision-making process and etc.

Methodology for Practicing Decision Management

Over the years we have put together a comprehensive guideline called Decision-Centric Approach® on whys, hows, and core principles of business decisions in practice. This unique way of thinking enables organizations to adopt decision management successfully and help them to:

  1. Identify and extract business decisions from (code, excel, business processes, heads of domain experts and etc.)
  2. Clearly describe and understand them
  3. Capture them visually i.e. model them
  4. Prioritize and link them to quantifiable business values
  5. Identify and capture the influencers and authorities

It is important to note a business decision may or may not be automated, but the principle of the Decision-Centric Approach® for business decisions are applicable to both of them.decision-centric approach for practicing decision management

Technology for Practicing Decision Management

The technology has two aspects:

  1. What tooling techniques can be used i.e. pro-code vs low-code
  2. What types of decision logic are needed i.e. rule-based logic, data-driven and Machine Learning models, and so on…

Tooling

In both aspects, there are many technologies out there that enable organizations to automate business decisions and decision-making processes. On the tooling itself, technologies are ranging from pro-code (or code-driven solutions) to low-code platforms. Decision Management technologies should support a wide range of these options.

Pro-Code technology

In many organizations, the in-house software development team plays a critical role in building computer systems that fully or partially automate either business decisions, or the decision-making processes. Decision Management technology should allow the software development teams to expand and enhance the business decision’s logic and making process with a code-driven approach. This can be either as an in-proc or out-proc approach. When the in-proc approach is utilized it is generally more optimum in terms of performance as executing a code happens inside a decision. In the out-proc method, the decision logic is hosted as a service outside of the decision and the decision management platform should call out service for execution.

Low-Code technology

Because the landscape of business decisions is dynamic and changes quite frequently, pro-code technology puts lots of pressure on software development teams as the frequency and complexity of required changes are high. The low-code approach can help organizations to enable all leaders from technology, business, and operation to take ownership of adapting changes in a systematic and collaborative approach. Therefore, this will significantly reduce the load from the software development team as the result enables all the leaders to participate and innovate in delivering business values.

When it comes to business decisions and decision-making process both tooling technology should take into account the traceability, auditability, and explainability of the end solution and the decision outcomes.

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Multiple Types of Decision Logic

The other challenge is, in organizations not all business decisions can only use a single technology such as business rules or machine learning, and so on. More often than not, in a decision-making process, there are multiple of these different technologies should work together as part of a single, coherent, and concise decision unit to create the outcomes and carry out the actions. Therefore, the decision management technology should support a wide range of techniques in decision logic such as business rules, predictive and prescriptive analytics, optimizations, procedural and algorithmic logic, calculation, and so on. Not only those but also, must be able to orchestrate the decision execution in a stateless (transient decision) or stateful (long-running decision).

An example of a business decision that combines both rule-driven and data-driven technologies for a complex pricing decicion.

Conclusion

Practicing Decision Management will enable organizations to focus on all types of business decisions and integrate and execute multiple techniques of decision logic into a coherent, concise manner as a single unit of decision making. As already mentioned decisions may or may not be automated, however, the Decision-Centric Approach® still is relevant to all types of decisions whether automated or not.

Last updated February 20th, 2023 at 11:52 am, Published January 13th, 2022 at 11:52 am