some short notes from PegaWorld 2007

I am going to be brief on my notes from the conference as I will share all of the presentations with the team once they are available. Some assorted notes I captured are listed below.

Processes are the muscles; business rules are the nerves (quote by Ron Ross, Co-Founder and Principal of Business Rule Solutions, LLC, recognized internationally as being the "father of business rules”).

Applications are getting smaller. Different applications can share same rules and processes, bringing increased ability to rapidly respond to change.

Of the 20+ widely recognized workflow patterns (see http://www.workflowpatterns.com/vendors/documentation/BPMN-pat.pdf ), the patterns used 80% of the time are Sequential, Parallel Split and Join, and Decision Split (remember 80/20 rule?).

PowerPoint most widely used BPM tool, followed by Visio.

Business Activity Monitoring (BPM) is based on current (active) data; Business Intelligence (BI) is based on historical (and aggregated) data; Business Process Analytical (BPA) data is based on historical data for the intent of determining the future via statistical tools and predictive models. Examples of BI include Business Objects and Cognos. Examples of BPA include Hyperion, SAS and SPSS. BI is largely based on data warehousing.

PMML = Predictive Modeling Markup Language; PMML is a mark up language for statistical and data mining models. It can be used/generated by Pega.

SmartBPM = BPM + BI + SOA

Quote: “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” ~Niccolo Machiavelli

Our brain (medulla oblongata) is genetically programmed to avoid/resist change (theorem of neurochemistry)

We resist change. Just for fun, the next time you shower, notice where you start lathering. The next day try somewhere new.

Strive for Business and IT fusion – not alignment. Alignment suggests trying to line up 2 or more things that are in motion? Ever try to deck a boat on a moving dock?

It is easy to buy technology pieces; it is hard to implement methodology.

What is the difference between a rule and a policy? The Ten Commandments are a policy; Thou Shalt Not Kill is a rule.

BPM is not just BPR – focus is on real time (or nearer real time)