Within organizations decisions are made frequently and have an important impact on reaching the organizations goals. Decisions are made using logic, even if that is not always obvious. There are many organizations that have automated their operational decision making. Blueriq is a platform that is often used to automate (parts of) the decision making process.

This chapter discusses how decision management is supported in Blueriq by means of Decision Requirements Graphs.

Decision Requirements Graph (DRD)

Blueriq adopted the Object Modeling Group (OMG) standard of Decision Model and Notation (DMN) with regards to the Decision Requirements Diagram (DRD). This means that Blueriq generates a DRD at design time in Encore, based on the decisions and sub decisions that have been modeled. Furthermore, Blueriq offers a DRD at design time and a slightly different DRG at runtime.

For more info on DRGs see Decision Requirements Diagram or DRD in Encore

Design time Decision Requirements Diagram

When designing a decision, make use of the Decision Requirements Diagram (DRD), depicted by a scale icon:.
(for more info on and where to open DRGs see Decision Requirements Diagram or DRD in Encore)

Let us say we are modeling a simple decision that determines whether someone will receive a discount on some sort of insurance.
Females are eligible for this discount, males are not. The decision requirements graph will probably look something like the one shown below.
In Encore, use Ctrl-click on the various elements to open them and verify that the discount is modeled correctly.

Although even for simple decisions the DRD is useful while designing or reviewing, the true strength of the DRD is exemplified when designing or reviewing multi-layered complex decisions. See the example DRD below, that shows the decision that determines Strategy. At level 1 this decision looks trivial.

When expanded to the next level, it shows that the decision consists of two separate decisions.

At level 4 the we find that there are in fact many more decisions in play:

It is possible to completely expand all decisions, knowledge models, input data and sources in one single graph, but this will most likely result in a diagram that is not usable for any type of audience. Therefore it is advised to expand sub decisions in separate DRDs. Shown below is such a DRD for the sub decision Bureau call type.

In the examples above, knowledge sources are shown. These knowledge sources appear in a DRD when a specification is linked to a decision (decision table, business rule, attribute with expression, etc.).

Runtime Decision Requirements Graph

Although OMG´s standard DMN does not contain any specifications for it, Blueriq also uses a runtime decision requirements graph. This graph resembles the design time decision requirements diagram, but differs mainly with regards to the fact that it shows all given answers and derived values. See the example below.

More information about the DRG in runtime can be found here: Decision Requirements Graph or DRG in runtime