David S. Read

InformationWeek Analytics (http://analytics.informationweek.com/index) invited me to write about the subject of process automation.  The article, part of their series covering application architectures, was released in July of this year.  It provided an opportunity for me to articulate the key components that are required to succeed in the automation of business processes.

Both the business and IT are positioned to make-or-break the use of process automation tools and techniques. The business must redefine its processes and operational rules so that work may be automated.  IT must provide the infrastructure and expertise to leverage the tools of the process automation trade.

Starting with the business there must be clearly defined processes by which work gets done.  Each process must be documented, including the points where decisions are made.  The rules for those decisions must then be documented.  Repetitive, low-value and low-risk decisions are immediate candidates for automation.

A key value point that must be reached in order to extract sustainable and meaningful value from process automation is measured in Straight Through Processing (STP).  STP requires that work arrive from a third-party and be automatically processed; returning a final decision and necessary output (letter, claim payment, etc.) without a person being involved in handling the work.

Most businesses begin using process automation tools without achieving any significant STP rate.  This is fine as a starting point so long as the business reviews the manual work, identifies groupings of work, focuses on the largest groupings (large may be based on manual effort, cost or simple volume) and looks to automate the decisions surrounding that group of work.  As STP is achieved for some work, the review process continues as more and more types of work are targeted for automation.

The end goal of process automation is to have people involved in truly exceptional, high-value, high-risk, business decisions.  The business benefits by having people attend to items that truly matter rather than dealing with a large amount background noise that lowers productivity, morale and client satisfaction.

All of this is great in theory but requires an information technology infrastructure that can meet these business objectives.

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One of the aspects of agile software development that may lead to significant angst is the database.  Unlike refactoring code, the refactoring of the database schema involves a key constraint – state!  A developer may rearrange code to his or her heart’s content with little worry since the program will start with a blank slate when execution begins.  However, the database “remembers.”  If one accepts that each iteration of an agile process produces a production release then the stored data can’t be deleted as part of the next iteration.

The refactoring of a database becomes less and less trivial as project development continues.  While developers have IDE’s to refactor code, change packages, and alter build targets, there are few tools for refactoring databases.

My definition of a database refactoring tool is one that assists the database developer by remembering the database transformation steps and storing them as part of the project – e.g. part of the build process.  This includes both the schema changes and data transformations.  Remember that the entire team will need to reproduce these steps on local copies of the database.  It must be as easy to incorporate a peer’s database schema changes, without losing data, as it is to incorporate the code changes.

These same data-centric complexities exist in waterfall approaches when going from one version to the next.  Whenever the database structure needs to change, a path to migrate the data has to be defined.  That transformation definition must become part of the project’s artifacts so that the data migration for the new version is supported as the program moves between environments (test, QA, load test, integrated test, and production).  Also, the database transformation steps must be automated and reversible!

That last point, the ability to rollback, is a key part of any rollout plan.  We must be able to back out changes.  It may be that the approach to a rollback is to create a full database backup before implementing the update, but that assumption must be documented and vetted (e.g. the approach of a full backup to support the rollback strategy may not be reasonable in all cases).

This database refactoring issue becomes very tricky when dealing with multiple versions of an application.  The transformation of the database schema and data must be done in a defined order.  As more and more data is stored, the process consumes more storage and processing resources.  This is the ETL side-effect of any system upgrade.  Its impact is simply felt more often (e.g. potentially during each iteration) in an agile project.

As part of exploring semantic technology, I am interested in contrasting this to a database that consists of RDF triples.  The semantic relationships of data do not change as often (if at all) as the relational constructs.  Many times we refactor a relational database as we discover concepts that require one-to-many or many-to-many relationships.

Is an RDF triple-based database easier to refactor than a relational database?  Is there something about the use of RDF triples that reduces the likelihood of a multiplicity change leading to a structural change in the data?  If so, using RDF as the data format could be a technique that simplifies the development of applications.  For now, let’s take a high-level look at a refactoring use case.

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Last week I had the pleasure of attending Semantic Arts’ training class entitled, “Designing and Building Business Ontologies.”  The course, led by Dave McComb and Simon Robe, provided an excellent introduction to semantic technologies and tools as well as coverage of ontological best practices.  I thoroughly enjoyed the 4-day class and achieved my principle goals in attending; namely to understand the semantic web landscape, including technologies such as RDF, RDFS, OWL, SPARQL, as well as the current state of tools and products in this space.

Both Dave and Simon have a deep understanding of this subject area.  They also work with clients using this technology so they bring real-world examples of where the technology shines and where it has limitations.  I recommend this class to anyone who is seeking to reach a baseline understanding of semantic technologies and ontology strategies.

Why am I so interested in semantic web technology?  I am convinced that structuring information such that it can be consumed by systems, in ways more automated than current data storage and association techniques allow, is required in order to achieve any meaningful advancement in the field of information technology (IT). Whether wiring together web services or setting up ETL jobs to create data marts, too much IT energy is wasted on repeatedly integrating data sources; essentially manually wiring together related information in the absence of the computer being able to wire it together autonomously!

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The annual Business Rules Forum is right around the corner… starting on November 1.  For the third year Blue Slate has been invited to share our insights with the attendees.  I will have an opportunity to speak about the importance of viewing all data through the lens of  a company’s business rules.  The title of my talk is, ‘Business Rules in the Integration Tier: The System of Record‘.  It is scheduled for Wednesday, November 4 at 2pm (moved from 3:05pm).

I am excited and honored to be given another opportunity to speak at the preeminent conference for business rules.  Beyond sharing my thoughts I am looking forward to learning from the many practitioners that will be discussing their insights as well.  The variety of experts, topics and industries creates a valuable opportunity for anyone looking to begin or expand the use of rule-based approaches within his or her business.

In addition to the sessions, I highly recommend attending one or more of the “Fun Labs”.  They provide an opportunity to use the vendors’ products and get your questions answered.  The chance to explore these tools and see the entire process of creating, editing and running rules is powerful.

Read on for details about how this conference provides many great opportunities for learning about the techniques, tools and products that support effective application of rule-centric approaches.

About the Business Rules Forum Conference

**The only conference world-wide with all the vendors under one roof at one time!**

Have a look at this year’s program. Find out what the excitement is all about!

Download a copy of our new Conference Brochure featuring highlights of this year’s unparalleled event.

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Information Systems (IS) implementations normally fail due to a lack of ownership, planning and execution by the organization.  The software and hardware tend to do what they are supposed to do.  Their features and limitations are typically known, at least if we take the time to investigate.  However, it is the organizational issues among and between business units and teams that actually require most of the effort when running an IS project.

The root causes of IS project failures include weak scoping, lack of executive management ownership, poor project management, lack of scope controls, improper infrastructure and inappropriate technology choices.

Weak scope leads to a project whose requirements are too broad to be met by any single system.  Similarly the team will be too broad with differing opinions as to the ultimate purpose of the project and therefore application.  After all, if the team members are each interpreting the goal(s) of the project in different ways it will be difficult, and time consuming, to arrive at consensus on each aspect of the project.

Lack of executive management ownership leaves the project team without an effective sponsor.  Having such a sponsor helps mitigate the various issues that will arise as the project team seeks to design and implement a new system.  Maintaining focus on the business goals of the system along with championing the system and breaking down barriers between groups are major functions for the executive owner.

Project management is key to delivering on any sort of solution, technology or otherwise.  Knowing the team roles, responsibilities, timelines and dependencies allows for issues to be identified proactively and resolved in a timely manner.  Exit strategies must be defined that rely on understanding the current project risks.  Without effective project management the actual status of the project remains hidden.

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