Dmn

DMN Tools - State of the Market May 2016

It's still early days for DMN, but a number of tools are available or have been publicly demonstrated. Here is my impression of where we are at the moment. DecisionsFirst Modeler James Taylor's free DecisionsFirst Modeler was one of the first DMN tools available. It allows a business user to draw DRDs and enter a wealth of business context behind each decision node. Instead of providing a DMN native decision logic editor for decision tables and literal expressions, it links to "

How DMN Is Different

In my BPMN classes I start by highlighting the ways in which it is different from traditional swimlane flowcharts. While the outward similarities ease business user adoption by presenting a familiar appearance, the reasons why BPMN has succeeded as a standard actually stem from all the ways in which it is different from (i.e., better than) flowcharting. And so it is with the Decision Model and Notation, or DMN. The similarities with earlier approaches center mostly around decision tables, a business-familiar tabular format for if-then decision logic that has been around for decades.

Is FEEL a Barrier to DMN Adoption?

In his comment on a recent post, Nick Broom questions my embrace of FEEL, in particular my claim that it is reasonably business-friendly. He worries that in fact that FEEL will prove a barrier to DMN adoption, especially since decision management tools are being sold on the premise that "anyone can do it." A lot to unpack there, but let me try. First, almost no one has any idea of what FEEL is.

More on Sub-DRDs

In my DMN 1.2 Wishlist post, one of the key items is the ability to represent a single decision node having complex decision logic with a "sub-DRD" equivalent to the boxed context representation allowed under DMN 1.1. In his comment, James Taylor sighs loudly and adds that if I understood the spec better I would realize that what I want can be done already in DMN 1.1. I don't see that, but a picture here is worth 1000 words.

My DMN 1.2 Wishlist

The DMN 1.2 Revision Task Force starts up this week. I have a number of related items in my wish list. Before submitting them to the RTF, I'll use these posts to generate some discussion. My top ones are these: Hierarchical DRD Like a subprocess in BPMN, I'd like a decision node in DRD to be expandable to another DRD, so that a single decision model representing a complex end-to-end business decision may be described as a tree of DRDs.

Routing Decisions and the DMN Method

In my book DMN Method and Style I find some fault with both The Decision Model (TDM) and the Lending example in the DMN 1.1 spec for delegating definition of a multi-step business decision to a BPMN process model instead of to where it rightfully belongs, a DMN decision model. To me, determining something like Is the loan approved or declined? is a single business decision, whether implemented as a single decision service or split into multiple steps.

What Is DMN?

DMN, which stands for Decision Model and Notation, is a relatively new standard managed by OMG, the organization behind BPMN. It is trying to do for Business Decision Management what BPMN did for Business Process Management a decade ago: empower the business to take charge of the logic that drives its operations, through a vendor-independent diagramming language. To be effective, that language must be both usable by business analysts and stakeholders in the business and verifiable for completeness and consistency.