About AA, BRxG, DRG

http://brexperts.ning.com/notes/About_AA_BRxG_DRG

Agility Alliance (AA) http://www.agilityalliance.org
Business Rule Experts Group (BRxG) http://www.brxg.org
Dallas Rules Group (DRG)    http://brexperts.ning.com/group/drg
   
Meetings of the BRxG working group and DRG user group
 
Index (Home page)
 
20100518 Webex meeting notes
20100420 Skype meeting notes
20100316 Skype meeting notes
20100216 Webex meeting notes
20090903 Kickoff meeting notes

Links

  1. ATTENDEES
  1. MEETING AGENDA

BRxG/AA/DRG friends:

 

Business Rule Experts Group (BRxG) and Agility Alliance (AA) invites you to attend our April 20 online meeting Skype call.

 

If you want to join us, send an email to BRxG_DallasRulesGroup_2009@bizrules.info to sign up.  Be sure to include your Skype ID if we don't already have it so we can add you to the call group. We will send you a confirmation email with call in instructions. 

AGENDA: The agenda below is a good start, but our best meetings happen when the discussion gets going in different directions, new topics are raised from out of the blue, and everyone shares their challenges and successes with rules.  See our notes from last month's meeting for an idea of what we talk about: http://bizrules.info/network/brxg_20100316.htm .

 

(A) A BRE vendor has asked if they can sponsor a BRxG meeting to show us their BRE/BRMS S, and give BRxG a  chance to "look under the hood" of their tool and ask the techie questions about how it really works and the mgmt questions of how it really makes things better. What do you think?

 

(B) BRxG WORKING GROUPS FORMATION- - LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS TO WORK TOGETHER ON BR CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS

 

(C) ASK THE BR EXPERTS A QUESTION!

We want to hear from you - - Do you have a question you would like to ask our panel of BR experts? Email me your questions or ask them on the call.

 

(D) I have some answers for questions 10, 11, 14 below… along with a short briefing on Business Rules Best Practices to get us started. That will be a Skype screen share, but you need to latest version of Skype to see it. Please download the Skype update before the call :)

 

Here are some questions BRxG members have submitted for discussion:

1. How do you know if this is a good candidate for a rule-based system?

2. ES vs. BRE?

3. What criteria do you use to select a BRE?

4. How do you estimate a rules project?

5. How do you know when you're done?

6. What is rules meta-data?

7. How do you get started doing rules?

 

Submitted by Lee:

8. How do you estimate a rules project?

9. Is it bad practice to tie actions (db updates) directly to rules?

10. Is the ABRD a widely accepted model for rules development?  Is there any other open or proprietary frameworks out there that are more popular?

11. What is the best way to introduce the business to rules development?  IE: the initial workshop to start breaking the rules down.

 

Submitted by Andrew:

12. Logical implication (use cases, best ideas for practice).

13. Testing rules (what's the best approach? Outside classes that call into rules? Is there a rules based practice for testing?)

14. How to tell when a rulebase contains an inadequate number of rules to deal with possible conditions (in terms of firing).

15. Managing a rules manager as part of the build process (deployment, pulling updates to a shared rulebase into source code, etc.).

 

Submited by Cedric:

16. Basically, we want to use DROOLS'BRMS for the automation of tests of accessibility definied by the W3C (WACAG 1.0).

17. Some of these tests could be simply implemented, others like "how to evaluate the pertinence of comment in a tag HTML "alt" need more reflexion.

 

Submitted by Rolando:

18. Introduction to rule harvesting methodologies, Knowledge Acquisition, and Representation

19. What do we (IT) do when we get the rulebook from the business?

20. How do we do analysis, design, and development for rules?

BRxG AA | April 20, 2010 | 3rd Tuesday | 7:45 PM to 9:00PM CT (Dallas)

7:45 - 8:00 PM CT - Call in, connect, and join the meeting

 8:00 - 8:10 PM CT - Introduce new members; Discuss any new issues, challenges, problems & solutions, tips & ideas

8:10 - 9:00 PM CT - Present today's topics & questions for the experts; Expert  discussion

9:00 PM CT - Wrap-up and suggestions for future topics

  

DRG | May 11, 2010 | 2nd Tuesday | 6:30 PM to 9:00PM CT (Dallas)

Next month the Dallas Rules Group (DRG) user group meeting will feature a presentation on IBM/ILOG BRMS by Alessandro Campioli, Ramadas Murali and Brett Jurick from IBM. To join the separate DRG mailing list or for more information,  email James at jamesowen@fico.com

 

BRxG AA | May 18, 2010 | 3rd Tuesday | 7:45 PM to 9:00PM CT (Dallas)

Next BRxG monthly Skype call.

 

If you have any questions or would like more information, call me at 972-987-1685.

 

Rolando Hernandez

founder Business Rule Experts Group; and Agility Alliance

BR consultant www.BizRules.com and www.VisibleKnowledge.com

  1. INTRODUCTIONS
  2. ...

5. OPEN DISCUSSION

Mike

Po-Chuan

Java, new to RB systems

Kimberly

Partner

BPMWave

Oil & gas

 

Tell us about the group

 

James

ORF conference

150  / 2008

85 / 2009

 

Dr Forgy / Rete

Mark Proctor / Drools

Tom Cooper

 

Gene

They were both at Chubb

Live in MD, wash. d.c.

BLAZE ADVISOR, JRULES, DROOLS, VISUAL RULES

@ WELLS FARGO = RULESADMIN

Was on the team to select the tool

They went

James

Nexpert, 1st Class Fusion, Blaze Advisor, JRules, VisualRules, Jess, CLIPS, VisiRule, Level 5

Mike

AION, learning now JRULES

Type of apps, lots of work in insurance

Kim

office nearby 635/35

Rolando

Technical question RULES

WAYS TO IDENTIFY WHICH RULES / DATA SOURCING

USER INPUT

RULE-BASED

DB-LOOKUP

HASH TABLE

CALCULATED VALUE

ETC

James

SME should not care where got the data

Business people shouldn't care

Geeks must know the sourcing though

When we talked about a specific data

We found it was in different places by the same name

Must dictionary of terms

Ilog

blaze advisor is different from the other BREs

They have to integrate the BRE with fraud detection

Business detection suites, other FICO apps

Gene

Today you use SAS , ERP,

Integer, string length

MDM - master data mgmt

Mike

TWO CLASSIC ADVANTAGES OF RULES

RULES ARE UNDERSTOOD BY THE BUSINESS USERS

GLOSSARY tools

How do you do it?

Rule express

Uses idea of Neighborhoods

Users OWN terms

Users BORROW / USER terms

Diff ways to define VOCABULARIES

Can be used as repository for the TERMS

GENE, blaze advisor,

Is a physical tool, PHYSICAL LEVEL REPOSITORY

HAS BOM - LIST OF VOCABULARIES, VARIABLES

XLS SPREADSHEET

WELLS FARGO - DEVELOPED RULES & TERMS

JCO

ILOG IRL

ILOG RULE LANGUAGE

RULE SOLUTIONS FOR OFFICE, works with Word2007

Export rules to Word

Adds a RULES RIBBON to Word

 

Another cool BR UI WAS HALEY AUTHORETE

Let you type your rules in natural English language

It was great

But it only ran on Windows

 

Po-chuan

 

wrap up

ANY INTEREST IN JOINING WORKING GROUPS to work on [deliverables]

 

Hammack

Interesting, but I have limited time

TOM DEBEVIOISE WROTE A WHITE PAPER ON BRULES

CURRENT STATE OR HISTORY OF BRE MKT

The past present and future of BR

JCO

RIGHT BRAIN LEFT BRAIN , inmen vs women

Men - brain split into two halves

Women - brain stays connected

 

Wrapup

 

  1. Website/membership update, BRxG AA Agility Alliance

 

  1. WORKING GROUPS

 

  1. NEXT STEPS
    1. Link-in with everyone on the call

 

  1. SUGGESTIONS FOR NEXT TIME
    1. Open discussion is nice, James wants to cover the questions on the agenda next time / stick to the agenda :)
    2. The state of BRE BRMS RBMS
    3. Issues, state of the BRE art, problems and solutions, tips & ideas, suggestions for next meeting/future calls
    4. News, blogs, projects, 5" presentations?
    5. Any other interesting topics?
    6. What do we want to actually DO, or ACCOMPLISH in the rules user grp

 

  1. TRANSCRIPT

[8:08:26 PM] Mark Proctor: hi
[8:08:44 PM] Kimberly Fink: Hi.
[8:12:30 PM] James Owen: That makes Mark happy. :)
Mark Proctor
[8:13:22 PM] Mark Proctor: if anyone is interested. Jotted down a lot of language ideas with working examples http://community.jboss.org/wiki/DroolsLanguageEnhancements
[8:14:57 PM] Mark Proctor: oh we have an internal prototype of backward chaining
[8:15:21 PM] Mark Proctor: allow a query to be called with variable unification. we also allow any query or rule to call query, with unification.
[8:15:29 PM] Mark Proctor: still working on the parser to expose that.
[8:16:24 PM] Mark Proctor: it's query based at the moment. won't have opportunistic backward chaining until we do "branch" which is a bit like OPSJ labelled else.
[8:19:25 PM] Kimberly Fink: Control + F for rules: http://www.modus21.com/resources/Butler-MetastormBPMv7%28TA001107BPM%29.pdf
[8:19:30 PM] Mark Proctor: if anyone is interesed, some photos of the drools boot camp are up. full attendance http://blog.athico.com/2010/04/drools-meetup-san-diego-2010-update-and.html
although Huh I can't be there due to volcano. some of the presentation slide decks are up on the wiki page http://community.jboss.org/wiki/DroolsBootCampSanDiegoApril2010
[8:19:41 PM] James Owen: We'll have to do a Nexpert demo one day if FICO will let me have the software. :)
[8:19:42 PM] Kimberly Fink: Integration into third-party rules engines (own rules engine also included).
[8:19:55 PM] Mark Proctor: james: that would be cool
[8:20:05 PM] James Owen: Mark has full boot camp and he's stuck in the UK. :(
[8:20:23 PM] Mark Proctor: old nexpert article link here http://blog.athico.com/2009/08/nexpert-review-mactech.html
[8:20:55 PM] James Owen: Good article
[8:21:17 PM] James Owen: I'm surprised that he could find the manuals to do get the screen shots
[8:21:23 PM] James Owen: I still have mine in storage
[8:21:55 PM] James Owen: Actually, that was a much older version of Nexpert
[8:22:06 PM] James Owen: The later versions had a really cool GUI
[8:22:09 PM] Mark Proctor: the article is very old too
[8:34:59 PM] James Owen: I went back to the original article and I can't find the date. Do you know when it was written?
[8:35:19 PM] Mark Proctor: sorry I forget
[8:35:35 PM] James Owen: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.02/02.03/ExpertSystems/index.html
[8:37:35 PM] Mark Proctor: james: 1986
[8:37:51 PM] Mark Proctor: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mt_indices/Vol_2_Issues.html
[8:37:52 PM] James Owen: Thanks - Now it makes sense
[8:38:27 PM] Mark Proctor: fico should put an up to date engine online :)
[8:38:36 PM] Mark Proctor: sorry up to date engine manual online
[8:39:12 PM] James Owen: WE have an up-to-date manual. It just isn't on line because Expert is not a free system.
[8:39:32 PM] Rolando Hernandez, BIZRULES: Kimberly sent this link:
http://www.modus21.com/resources/Butler-MetastormBPMv7%28TA001107BPM%29.pdf
[8:39:33 PM] James Owen: We're not into free stuff.
[8:40:19 PM] James Owen: Kimberly - can you get to that last link that Mark put up there? Is it pretty much true?
[8:41:14 PM] Kimberly Fink: Yes I sent the link out.
[8:41:47 PM] Kimberly Fink: Of course...it is an old document so of course it is better now.
[8:42:28 PM] Kimberly Fink: Metastorm competes with iLog and Lombardi which is now IBM too.
[8:45:33 PM] Mark Proctor: haley 6 review http://www.infoworld.com/ifwclassic/weblog//tcdaily/archives/2007/04/haley_60.html
[8:45:35 PM] Mark Proctor: with screenshots
[8:45:42 PM] Mark Proctor: http://www.infoworld.com/ifwclassic/weblog//tcdaily/archives/Haley%20Authority%20Large.html
[8:45:49 PM] Mark Proctor: http://www.infoworld.com/ifwclassic/weblog//tcdaily/archives/Excel%20Tabular%20Rules%20Large.html
[8:46:15 PM] Mark Proctor: ruleburst needed the sales channel to help break into non-australian markets
[8:48:24 PM] James Owen: true
[8:48:26 PM] Mark Proctor: nope, I'm fine thanks.
[8:49:00 PM] Mark Proctor: other than, help me get right our next general technical rule language. it was easy before, just copying what others did. now in new territory :)
[8:49:08 PM] Mark Proctor: http://community.jboss.org/wiki/DroolsLanguageEnhancements
[8:50:02 PM] James Owen: We need to wrap up soon - I still need to finish my supper. :)
[8:53:56 PM] Mark Proctor: heh
[8:54:20 PM] Kimberly Fink: Ok I am enjoying this. LOL
[8:55:00 PM] Mark Proctor: yup listening.
[8:55:09 PM] Mark Proctor: what I can't do is multi-task admin
[8:55:10 PM] Rolando Hernandez, BIZRULES: nice
[8:55:26 PM] Mark Proctor: no good with life stuff like that.
[8:57:54 PM] James Owen: I'll tell Michelle :)
[8:58:05 PM] Mark Proctor: kimberly: Drools does BPMN2 now
[8:58:17 PM] Mark Proctor: jBPM5 is gonna be based on Drools Flow actually
[8:58:25 PM] Kimberly Fink: Interesting.
[8:58:37 PM] Mark Proctor: haha
[8:58:50 PM] Mark Proctor: no updating wiki and doing admin stuff for conference
[8:59:02 PM] Mark Proctor: uploading people's presentations, boring stuff :(
[9:01:56 PM] Kimberly Fink: kim.fink@bpmwaveus.com
[9:03:22 PM] Mark Proctor: bye