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5 Tests for High-Quality Rules in IBM Operational Decision Manager

By Peter Warde posted Mon October 03, 2022 06:54 AM

  


IBM Operational Decision Manager is one of the best products on the market for business rules because it enables rule authoring using the everyday language of your business.

To get the full return on investment (ROI), you should always create high-quality rules. When you have high-quality rules, you can easily understand how your decisions are taken and achieve business agility through frequent and rapid changes of the rules. You can set out to achieve the goal of having your business rules "under business jurisdiction" (OMG SBVR).



High-quality rules are essential to realising your ROI in ODM in terms of in licenses, platforms and services. Here are 5 tests for high-quality ODM rules. The example shown is from a rule in an ODM shipping decision.

1. Is the Rule easy to author?

A high-quality ODM rule is always easy to author. In ODM the activity of creating or changing a rule is called "authoring". It is the process by which rule authors create or change the rule selecting business vocabulary from options in Decision Center.



You cannot do ODM without creating a business vocabulary as business vocabulary is what you will use to express ODM rules. A correctly designed ODM rule application quality of the business vocabulary which provides the rule author with the relevant Business Terms and Facts with which to write a rule. It also does not confuse the author by presenting irrelevant vocabulary as too much vocabulary will overwhelm the rule author. It also does not confuse the author with non-business vocabulary. IT terms have no place in business rules. The quality of the business vocabulary that will be a main factor in determining whether you can get rule authoring working Decision Center. It is worth doing properly.

A correctly designed ODM rule application also uses the following ODM features:

  • Categories - which make available subsets of the vocabulary to a rule, thereby constraining the vocabulary options available to the rule author.



  • Domains and Value Editors which enable the rule author to select from a list of reference and master data values with meaningful business labels.



  • Core types which supplement the in-built ODM business language with any units you may require, such as currencies, percentages, weights, and the operations that can be performed on them.

2. Can the Rule be understood?

A high-quality ODM rule can always be understood by a knowledgeable business person. The rule does not need explanation or deciphering.




A high-quality ODM rule is standalone and declaratory. It does not require you to go anywhere else to get additional information. The rule avoids local variable definitions, complex logic and looping expressions as these are features of code and not business language. The rule is always concise. It is never over-complex or verbose.

A high quality ODM rule that is part of a set of rules will be authored in a decision table which has meaningful column names and does not have a large number of empty cells.


3. Has the Rule been analysed?


A high-quality rule has been thoroughly analysed against all the other ODM rules in Decision Center. By carrying out analysis you know how the rule relates to other rules. Does it have dependencies? Does it contradict or duplicate another rule? Is it part of a set of rules in an ODM decision table and if so, does it create overlaps or gaps? What will the impact be if the rule is changed?

A high-quality ODM rule has always been thoroughly analysed. ODM provides tools for analysing rules and checking their consistency.


4. Is the Rule easy to find?


A high-quality ODM rule is always easy to locate in Decision Center. This is particularly true when there are many rules and you do not know its precise location. The rule is well-located in the Decision Center hierarchy of projects and folders, allowing you to easily navigate to the location of the rule.

The rule is also well-named. The name of the rule indicates its business objective, allowing you to understand the purpose of the rule before examining it.



A well-designed ODM rule application will put considerable thought into the design of the structure of projects and folders in Decision Center, and the naming convention for rules.

5. Is the Rule being managed?


A high-quality ODM rule contains all the information needed to manage it. For example, you know what the source of the rule is, who owns it and can approve it. You know what activities have been performed on the rule, when and by whom. You also know the current version of the rule and whether the rule has passed testing or is in production.

ODM rule properties allow you to treat the rule as a valuable business asset by providing information about it. A well-designed ODM rule application will put considerable thought into rule management. ODM provides a predefined set of rule properties. It also allows you to add any additional properties needed by either business or IT for rule management.



A high-quality ODM rule is only complete when all its properties are correctly set.

About

Peter Warde has created the ODM Accelerator for IBM Operational Decision Manager - a collection of resources for designing and building richer, better, more maintainable and higher quality ODM rule applications.



If you like this article, you can read my other ODM articles:


You can also find this article on LinkedIn with viewer comments.

 
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