Links

• http://bizrules.info/network/drg/BRxGDRG_20090903_UG_Slides.pdf
• http://bizrules.info/network/drg/BRxGDRG_20090903_UG_Audio.mp3  (78 MB , mp3 , 1'23")
• http://bizrules.info/network/drg_20090903.htm (permalink)

Thanks to everyone for a great meeting! We got off to a great start. We discussed many good ideas at the kickoff meeting of the Business Rule Experts Group/Dallas Rules Group on Sept. 3rd:

We’re not exactly sure what we want to do yet, but we agreed that we want to do something to benefit the rules industry and all companies using rule engines. The group volunteered to work on projects that deliver something valuable to business. Like creating case studies, best practices, lessons learned, templates, etc. for rulebased projects. And of course it would all be vendor-neutral, so our templates could be used by any company as guides to help them (1) get started using the rules approach and (2) succeed with rules (3) and leverage the power of rules using advanced techniques and methods.

There was an open group discussion that got everyone involved in the conversation. Everyone was excited and volunteered to move forward with this idea even though we don’t know yet exactly what we’re going to do. Everyone agreed to bring a few ideas on what projects we can work on to the next meeting. Then we’ll decide what project we want to work on first.

Our goal for the October 1st meeting is to decide what the rules working group/user group plans to accomplish first. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Below are rough/unedited notes from the meeting. Anyone know how to automatically transcribe the audio?

1. Thank you for coming to the first BRxG DRG user group meeting
   1. Welcome from IBM, our meeting host
      1. IBM team
         1.  Jeff
         2. Steven
         3. Peggy - Program Mgr

2. Rolando
   1. Briefing slides / presentation on:
      1. About AA, BRxG, DRG
      2. Why do we need DRG

3. Begin group discussion:
   1. what do we want to put into DRG, and get out of DRG?

4. Greg
   1. We need good Ideas for talking to the business

5. James
   1. Split into 3 groups
   2. Would be great to get Larry teaching
   3. JCO was once part of a similar UG that split into an advanced group and a beginner group

6. Jim
   1. Newbie

7. Joe Buchta
   1. .
   2. Business people care more about flexibility, not Rete
   3. Their problems required agility, not Rete

8. Gb: the whole point of using BRE is handling complexity
   1. For simple examples you really don’t need rules

9. Lindsey
   1. Re-positioning the team
      1. The team does all 3 roles

10. Rh
    1. Do you still need to get buy-in from the business
    2. Lindsey - out of ~800+ people in IT, maybe ~2% of the apps are in rules today

11. Joel
    1. My job is to bridge the gap between IT and business
    2. Not usually coding
    3. My job is to select technology for the company
    4. I have to understand the technology, even though I am not coding; I need to understand the techn. So I can communicate with my developers

12. Larry
    1. As a consultant, I am involved in all 3 roles
       1. Training
       2. Middle-ground, they have the arch, a big project
       3. On most of my projects, it's not that we choose rete… most of these projects can be done in jave
          1. But get agility, flexibility, etc
          2. Get ability to get non-programmers involved in writing rules
       4. On most projects, the goal
          1. Is liberating the business  logic and getting it into the hands of the business
       5. Lindsey : we now have word nimble in our new mission stmt
       6. Buchta: that’s why we see financial companies using rules

13. Joel
    1. Say I have rules that apply to multiple depts
       1. Whats'  a good strategy to get these rules:
          1. Efficiently
          2. And not redundantly
       2. So I'd like to learn what works and what doesn’t work

14. Jco
    1. Ned info on
       1. How to explain rules to mgmt

15. Ken
    1. I Liked the path Greg took on a hypothetical business case
       1. Case on bus company
       2. We can learn from that

16. James
    1. Why not combine Greg's idea  + invite business people

17. Ken
    1. I think sustaining 1 group has proven too difficult, 3 is too ambitious for now for starters
    2. Just having 1 group succeed would be huge

18. Rh
    1. Why r u here
       1. Ken - because we're geeks

19. Joel
    1. A twist on James idea
       1. Work on an open-source case… a realistic rules development project for say a fictitious company

20. Rolo
    1. Why not form a WORKING GROUP to create open source rules projct deliverables, such as
       1. BR job descriptions
       2. .
    2. I have some public rules form a client that are now "public"

21. Jco
    1. I worked on an open source project that created
       1. BR job descriptions
       2. Other docs such as reusable templates
    2. DELIVERABLE
       1. THE JOB DESCRIPTIONS
          1. What are the best job skills/criteria to look for for hiring BR project team
       2. A SAMPLE PROJECT, LIKE GREG'S BUS COMPANY EXAMPLE

22. Lindsey
    1. One ting that would draw me in, was if we ad a REAL GOOD EXAMPLE, of how I use rules technolgo,
       1. How technology fit the problem
       2. Ho the design fit that
       3. How the technology was applied
       4. Someone from my business community might be interested to see how they could use it
       5. USE A CASE STUDY TYPE APROACH where rules where successfully applied
          1. Say a motor / mfg / services company, or a particular problem
       6. I did build ES so I have that experience
    2. I NEED ……

23. JCO
    1. We need a business expert

24. Ken
    1. …

25. Joe
    1. It cant be a 3hr talk on a topic, by a presenter or vendor etc. how boring

26. Greg
    1. Hybrid approach
    2. One mtng where we design the case study

27. Rolo
    1. THE CASE STUDY WE NEED IS IN THE WALL SREET JOURNAL EVERY DAY

28. Buchta
    1. …
    2. Start at the top
    3. Begin with Rule harvesting

29. Jco
    1. Even the BRE vendors don’t really care about Rete
    2. It's all about solving complex problems

30. Lindsey
    1. If we can create something open , we can use that at southwest
    2. 1 question, I want to answer
       1. Are we trying to become better at solving business problems?
       2. Or trying to build BR systems better?
       3. The answer is ===> BOTH!!

31. Greg
    1. I like the idea of over 2-3 mtngs, define a case

32. Rolo
    1. That works, also supports new people coming n at step 3

33. Lindsey
    1. Suppose we all bring 2-3 cases

34. Buchta
    1. When u build a bridge its from point a to b
    2. Building sw is never like that

35. Greg
    1. For the next mtng, get to come up with 4-5 potential case studies
       1. Focused on
          1. Complexity
          2. Agility
    2. END PRODUCT
       1. BASIC DELIVERABLES
       2. PART 1
          1. HOW TO APPROACH BUSINESS, MGMT, SMEs
       3. PART 2
          1. HOW TO START DESIGNING THE RULEBASE

36. LINDSEY
    1. WE SHOULD FIRST AGREE ON WHAT WOULD BE IN A FINAL PRODUCT
       1. GREG: LETS FOLLOW Zachman that were outlined in the slides
       2. ROLO: I CAN DO RULE HARVESTING SESSIONS for the selected case and show you ways to extract rules from the business/SME

37. ROLO: WE TAKE THIS CASE STUDY ON THE ROAD,
    1. TO EVANGELIZE RULES
    2. USING THIS CASE STUDY AS an example of a successful rules case study

38. GREG/JAMES: AFGTER 2-3 ITERATIONS,
    1. In a year, I think we can become like a university  lab/research center that companies goto to solve tough problems,

39. GREG
    1. I think well after 12 mths or so we will be at that stage where we would be ready to take on that type of project challenge

40. WRAP
    1. We can do this to
       1. create deliverables that could be used by companies to showcase what a rulebase approach can solve for them
       2. To learn from the experience and gain new skills
       3. To add an "open" project that is public that we can add to our resume
       4. To learn from this… and have fun doing it