Business Processes and Business Logic

Decision-Aware Business Processes 1

 Knowledge Processes
■ All business activities are part of in a process. The question is
whether the process is prescribed or adhoc.
■ Knowledge Processes can be regarded as adhoc business processes
♦ knowledge processes may consist of several tasks
♦ the order of the tasks may be determined at run-time
♦ even the tasks themselves may be determined at run-time
■ In the extreme case a knowledge process only consists of one task
(we sometimes use the term knowledge-intensive task (KIT) for knowledge
work that is not decomposed into activities or phases in advance)

prescribed process kowledge process

prescribed process (adhoc business process)
with adhoc subrocess
Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
Decision-Aware Business Processes 2
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 Separating Processes Logic and Business Logic

■ Davenport's distinguishes between process and practice

♦ Process – the design for how work is to be done
● Process Logic
♦ Practice – an understanding of how individual workers respond to the
real world of work and accomplish their assigned tasks
● Business Logic

■ Following this distinction Process Logic and Business Logic

should be modeled and managed separately
♦ Process Logic – step-by-step flow of work
♦ Business Logic – applying knowledge to derive a result
Separate the KNOW from the FLOW
Separate the WHAT from the HOW
Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Business Processes containing Knowledge Work
 A process can contain
knowledge work
 The prescribed process part can
be planned and modeled in
advance.
 Business logic can be added to
activities
 experts
 documents
 guidelines
 business rules
 …
§ $ (in particular to a knowledge-
intensive task KITs)
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 Combining Structured Processes and Knowledge
Work
■ There often is a mixture of
prescribed model parts and
adhoc parts.
■ Example: Sometimes it makes
sense
♦ to model the process flow of
routine cases, e.g. for efficiency
and automation
♦ treat special cases and
exceptions as knowledge work
done individually or
collaboratively by the knowledge
workers

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann

MSc BIS Decision-Aware Business Processes 5
 Approach: Dealing with Knowledge Work in
Business Processes
This is a procedure model for knowledge work in business
processes. It separates Process Logic from Business Logic.

1. Process Elicitation
2. Identification of Knowledge-intensive Tasks
3. Modelling
♦ Process Flow
♦ Business Logic for KITs

4. Continuous Improvement of
♦ Business Process Model
♦ Business Logic
Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Operational Business Decisions – A special Kind of
Knowledge Work
■ In the following we specialize the approach for a specific kind
of knowledge work: Operational Business Decisions
■ A decision is characterized by a question
■ Examples for decision questions:
♦ Should the insurcance claim be accepted, rejected or examined for fraud?
♦ Which resource should be assigned to this task?
♦ Which service should be used to ship this package?

■ An operational business decision considers cases arising in

day-to-day business and answers the question for each case
by choosing among potential outcomes.
■ Each operational business decision involves business logic
(know how) to answer the question. (Ross 2011, p. 149)
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Decision-Aware Business Processes 7
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 Decision

■ A decision is a determination requiring know-how - the

resolving of a question by reasoning.
■ An outcome is an answer to such a question
■ A decision task is a business task or action in which some
decision is made

(Ross 2011, p. 150)

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 Decision Tasks in Business Processes

■ Decision Tasks occur in business process

■ They are knowledge-intensive tasks for operational business
decisions
■ Decision tasks can provide data for gateways

Decision: Is the
application eligible? Decision: Which product is
appropriate for the applicant in
this specific case?

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann

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 Basic Elements of Operational Business Decisions

■ A case is some particular matter or situation arising in day-to-day business

activity and requiring consideration
■ A potential outcome is some result, conclusion, or answer that might be
deemed appropriate for a case. An operational decision has at least two
potential outcomes.
■ The outcome is the result, conclusion, or answer deemed appropriate for a
given case
■ The decision logic is the business logic (the the set of all decision rules) for
cases in scope of a given decision.

(Ross 2011, p. 152f)

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 Examples for Elements of Business Decisions
■ Process: Handling auto insurance applications
■ Case: John Smith applies for a auto insurance
■ Decision Task: Check Eligibility of applicant
■ Potential outcome: Depending on the decision, potential
outcomes might be
♦ some form of yes/no (e.g. eligible/non-eligible)
♦ some quanitities (e.g. dollar amounts)
♦ some categories (e.g. silver, gold, or platinum customer)
♦ some real-world instances (e.g. employee to serve a real-world
customer, software product to be purchased)
♦ some course of action (e.g. on-site visit, teleconference, email)
■ Outcome: John Smith is deemed eligible for auto insurance
(Ross 2011, p. 152f)
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Decision-Aware Business Processes

Decision-Aware Business Processes 12

 Decision-aware Business Processes

■ A decision-aware business process as one that is designed to

distinguish between
♦ tasks that perform work (i.e., process tasks) and
♦ tasks that come to conclusions based on business logic (decision tasks)

■ This separation enables the details behind a decision task (i.e.,

business logic) to be represented in a different kind of model,
specific to business logic.
■ Separating business decisions from business process tasks
♦ simplifies the business process model,
♦ allows to manage business logic in a declarative form,
♦ offers more creativity in organizing the business logic
♦ delivers the business logic in a form that transcends technology options
(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 66)
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 Managing Decision-aware Business Processes

The general approach for dealing with knowledge work in

business processes can be specialized to a procedure model
for decision-aware business processes:

1. Process Elicitation
2. Decision Analysis: Identify key questions
3. Modelling
♦ Process Flow
♦ Decision Logic

4. Continuous Improvement
♦ Business Process Management
♦ Business Decision Management
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 Decision Analysis: Capturing Decision Logic

■ Decision Analysis identifies and analyses key questions

arising in day-to-day business activity and captures the
decision logic used to answer the question.
■ The result of decision analysis is decision logic
♦ Decision Logic is Business Logic for decision making
♦ Decision logic is a set of decision rules for cases in scope of a given
decision
♦ A decision rule is a business rule that links a case to some appropriate
outcome

■ Decision logic should be externalized from decision tasks

♦ Decision tasks are procedural
♦ Decision logic should be declarative
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 Declarative Representation of Decision Logic

■ Decision logic should be represented declaratively

■ A declarative representation of Decision Logic
♦ specifies the conditions on which a decision is made
♦ does not specific how the conditions are tested, in particular it does not
specify the order in which conditions are tested

■ Examples of declarative representations of decision logic

♦ decision tables
♦ business rules
♦ Decision Model (von Halle & Goldberg 2010)
♦ Q-Charts (Ross 2011)

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 Distinguishing a Procedural Task from a
Declarative Decision
■ A procedural solution specifies how, in a step-by-step
manner, something is to be done.
♦ So a business process model is a procedural solution because it
prescribes a set of tasks that are carried out in a particular sequence.
♦ The business process model is the “How” of a unit of work.

■ A declarative solution only specifies what needs to be done,

with no details as to how, in a step-by-step manner, it is to be
carried out, because sequence is irrelevant to arriving at the
correct result.
♦ A Decision Model is a declarative solution because it is a set of
unordered business logic, not a set of ordered tasks.
♦ A Decision Model is the “What” of a special kind of unit of work.
(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 67)
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 Procedural versus Declarative

process
logic

business
logic

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 67)

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 Example 1: Declarative vs. Procedural Solutions

Procedural

Declarative

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 69)

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Advantages of Separating Business Processes and
Business Logic in Option 3
■ The Rule Family implies no particular sequence among the conditions to
be tested.
■ The Rule Family indicates via the “?” that there are other possible
combinations of conditions to consider.
■ The Rule Family can contain as many rows as are needed to reach the
correct conclusion. It can contain additional columns if other conditions are
needed to determine a person’s credit rating.
■ The Rule Family table also contains business logic for the logic not
modeled in the business process models of Option 1 and Option 2, e.g.
the possible values of person’s debt ("high", "low")and employment history
("good", "bad")

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 68f)

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Distinctions between Business Process and
Business Decision

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p.70)

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 Improvements by separating business logic from
Business Process Model
■ Allows a much simpler business process model
■ Easily highlights all possible combinations of conditions
■ Supports the principle of separation of concerns
♦ Permits changes in the Decision Model without changing the business
process model
♦ Permits changes in the business process model without changing the
Decision Model

+
(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 69)
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 Disadvantages to Burying Decisions (Business
Logic) in Business Processes

■ If a business process is too complicated, a reason might be that business

rules are embedded in the flow
■ "If you separate the business rules, you can develop remarkably stable
business processes" (Roger Burlton) (von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 70)
Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Example 2: Business Logic not contained in a
Process Model

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 71)

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 A Business Process Model does not Reveals All
Business Logic
■ If the separation of business processes and business logic
is not made conscuously, some business logic might be in
the process model while others is missing
■ It must then be modeled separately, e.g. in the task
descriptions or externally (if it is represented at all)
■ Reusability if hampered: Some of the business logic may
be used in several of the tasks (maybe even several
processes).
■ The Decision Model resurrects all of the business logic in
one visual artifact.
(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 72)
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 Managing Business Logic separately

■ This solution has two tasks with their

Decision Models.
■ The Decision Model can be viewed,
managed, and executed as one whole
set of business logic, as a black box
evaluating conditions and reaching a
conclusion.
■ Business Logic can be reused
♦ the whole decision model
♦ Individual rule families
(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 71f)
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 Business process model without regard for
business decisions
Business Logic is partly represented
in tasks, while others is represented
in textual annotations

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 74)

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Process after Re-Engineering

The detailed business logic is

captured in Decision Models

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 75)

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Business Process Model, Decision Model and
Rules Families

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 76)

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 Decision Requiring Sequence

■ There are business circumstances that require separate

business decisions and Decision Models.
♦ Different business decision may be governed by different groups,
hence having separate Decision Models facilitates separate governing
bodies for the business logic.
♦ There may be different decisions depending on a previous decision
(Example: After a make-or-buy decision either the supplier has to be
selected or the effort for the development is derived).

■ The business process model is simplified and collapsed by

♦ separating the decision into separate decisions for which sequencing is
required
♦ removing business decisions from the business process model when
sequence is not required (and modeling them in decision models)
(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 77)
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 Achieving Business Excellence by Managing
Decision Logic Separately
■ von Halle and Goldberg argue that operational excellence
alone is insufficient for sustainable competitive advantage.
■ Key business process must not only be efficient and
consumer-friendly but also smart and agile
♦ Business processes become agile when declarative business
decisions are separated from procedural business process tasks
♦ Business processes become smart when the business decisions are
governed appropriately by business leaders

■ When the business leadership clearly understands the

business logic behind the business decisions, the impact of
those decisions can be ascertained, and the business can
quickly and easily make adjustments. (von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 78)
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 Business Decision Management

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 83)

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Business Decision Management

■ The practice of managing smart, agile decisions is called

Business Decision Management (BDM) or Enterprise
Decision Management (EDM)
■ Three elements of BDM:
♦ Business Motivation: the general business plan, and the
specific business objective/s
♦ Business Metrics: measurements and time periods that
are set by the business objectives
♦ Business Logic: logic underlying the business decision
that is implemented to achieve the business objective
(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 83)
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 Decision Model Tools for Enterprise Architects

(von Halle & Goldberg 2010, p. 87)

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann
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 Literatur

■ Von Halle, B., & Goldberg, L. (2010). The Decision Model: A

Business Logic Framework Linking Business and Technology.
CRC Press Auerbach Publications.
■ Ross, R. G., & Lam, G. S. W. (2011). Building Business
Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules. Business
Rule Solutions Inc.

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann

Decision-Aware Business Processes 35
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