IDIOM Decision Manager
Models of decision making behavior are the most important knowledge that a business has about itself
For an overview of IDIOM Decision Manager Technology.
Idiom's seminal paper "Decisioning - a new approach to systems development", originally published in the January 2007 Business Rules Journal, provides a clear, business oriented explanation of the decisioning fundamentals. It defines and describes decisioning in detail, and introduces the decision model as the pre-eminent computer executable manifestation of corporate policy.
Decision models provide a direct link between operational systems and corporate policy. When generated as an executable, decision models become the proximate source of value changes in operational systems. As such, the role of the decision model within the overall systems development process and architecture can be significant.
In a traditional development process, it can be difficult to prove that the intent of corporate policy is actually reflected in the implemented system.
With a decisioning approach implemented using Idiom Decision Manager, the linkage is direct and proveable.
Idiom's Decision Manager is the benchmark implementation of the decisioning approach. In order to adequately service the decisioning approach, a tool must have various features and capabilities as follows::
- It must be definitive. Every fact, every operator, must be clear and explicit so that the elements of the decision model are guaranteed to be unambiguous.
- It must be structured. The construction of elements into a semantic model must be managed to ensure that only one possible interpretation (and therefore execution path) is possible given any specific problem instance.
- It must be easy to use. To encourage use it should be faster than writing the equivalent narrative.
- It must produce business readable output for verification.
- The decision analyst should be able to close the loop with domain experts by hands-on guided walk through and confirmation of the decision constructs before expensive downstream work is undertaken.
- It must be testable. The decision models should demonstrate correct results before expensive downstream work is undertaken. Only after this point can we be sure that the decision requirements are known and complete, removing much of the risk and cost from subsequent development phases.
- It must require no 'fingerprints' to achieve executable code. We do not want verified and tested decision models to be hand-cranked into code, which would undo all verification and testing by definition.
The output of Idiom Decision Manager is high quality, industrial strength source code - you own it!
Features and Functions
Tool assisted decision capture
- All actions are point and click, so no syntax to learn.
- User only types in the names of things; no other keying. Naming is the user's own, thereby creating a private vocabulary (an "idiom").
- The rules that define individual decisions are assembled lego-like, using the fun to use, drag-and-drop Formula palette.
- The decisions are linked into a model (the 'Decision Model') using the graphical 'mind mapping' styled Decision Model palette.
Decision models built with Idiom Decision Manager will generate correct executable code; despite hundreds of in-built validations, the Idiom Decision Manager cannot protect the analyst from declaring the wrong intent for the decision processing, therefore it provides extensive integrated testing capabilities for the analyst to use right on their desktop.
Tool assisted testing
- An interface is provided within the tool to interactively create and store test data based on the Fact Model definitions (XSD's).
- The generated form of the decision model interacts directly with the test data for in-palette testing.
- Step by step breakpoint testing can be used for finding errors in decision sequence and logic.
- All correct tests can be recorded and used for subsequent regression testing.
- New decisions can use tests created for existing decisions.
Management and documentation
- The decision models are generated into business readable documents using stylized 'logical English', replacing the need for external documentation.
- When a decision formula is released, the formula is protected from further changes. All versions of a formula are permanently retained.
- Formulas and table data are effective dated, with effective dating automatically managed by the tool and the runtime.
- Extensive 'where used' capabilities assist impact analysis and rule maintenance.
- Extensible templates are available to support incremental development of decision models across multiple parties.
- Complete audit histories by user and session track all changes made.
Implementation capabilities
- Both external and internal look-up tables are supported.
- Runtime performance is fast; decisions models are deployed as compiled components for the Java and/or DotNET and/or Compact Framework platforms.
- Signed code generation can be used to ensure fully documented and audit controlled deployment of all production rules.
For more information, see the IDIOM Evaluation Criteria PDF.