There’s an article getting a bit of interest that is titled “NSW govt makes its first regulation machine-readable”. Some are reacting and saying “Cool, it’s coding!”. Yes it is, sort of, guys; but not as you might know it! Add to that, it’s part of a Wonderful World Of Notations and Standards: so let’s go there…
There’s a fit between BPMN (used for business process design), which I’ve been using since 2004; UML and DMN.
DMN is Decision Model and Notation. That’s what is being used by the NSW Government.
"I've been saying for years that legislation can be interpreted back to a rules base; and in fact, that's where legislation should really be designed in the first place!"
There are a stack of standards for all sorts of industries managed by the OMG. DMN is just one of them. Several years ago, the OMG took over the BPMN standard. There is also a Business Process Definition Metamodel, which extends BPMN from the earlier and basic 1.0 specification to handle the detail of the more extensive 2.0 standard, supplementing it with extra-notational data to make it semantically complete. Can you tell I’m into business process design using BPMN?
What’s really, really important though is the top end of all this. There is work going on in the Enterprise Business Architecture space. I’m a member of the Business Architecture Guild, which concentrates on total business architecture, encompassing business, application and technology models. The BA Guild relates to the OMG. If you fancy your chance of going back a few weeks in time (StarGate?) and “Escaping To Another Country” (where a summit is being held), you can immerse yourself in this discipline. See the BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE INNOVATION SUMMIT. Please let me know if you manage to rewind in time. Even if you do something boring like an air flight, I’m open to stowing away in your suitcase 😁.
The world of really useful standards is gaining more and more momentum and importance. I’m personally looking forward to seeing what happens with translation between enterprise business frameworks as a result is this work!
So now you’ve heard my thoughts on the world of business rules via Decision Model & Notation, BPMN, Enterprise Architecture, time travel and Escaping To Another Country, you can (time allowing) read the article that spawned my monologue at IT NEWS.