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Decision ManagementDiagnostic & Descriptive

FICO

PRODUCT OV

ERVIEW

xDRAW

Modern decision management projects are highly complex, involving interactions between process management, user interfaces, and automated decision-making. Project success depends on having a clear and complete set of functional requirements across all of these domains. FICO’s Extended DRA Workshop — FICO® xDRAW — is a scalable framework for defining functional requirements for complex decision management projects, covering process management, case management, decision management, and data management. It provides a simple but rigorous way to create clear, structured requirements in the form of easily understood diagrams, resulting in a smooth and reliable implementation project.

With the FICO® xDRAW, you can: Reduce time-to-value of decision management implementations by 10% to 50%.

Run productive requirements workshops, using a tried-and-tested simple top-down method.

Use intuitive graphical models to capture the complete functional requirements for complex systems.

Create a clear, portable definition of functional scope using popular open standards from Object Management Group (OMG).

Provide accurate estimates of project costs and timescales, based on detailed requirements.

Functional scoping of decision management solutions using graphical models

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Diagnostic & DescriptiveDecision ManagementFICO® xDRAW

FICO has helped businesses implement a variety of decision management solutions for more than 30 years. These implementations have leveraged FICO analytics, optimization, and business rule software in addition to third-party applications and open source technologies. The breadth and complexity of these implementations have helped us define a series of repeatable practices to improve and streamline processes over time.

In documenting these processes, we recognized that people grasp diagrams much more easily than text and are more likely to adopt a methodology that is visually driven. Therefore, FICO® xDRAW allows the full functional scope of a decision management project — business processes, user interactions, decision-making, and data management — to be defined simply and clearly using graphical models. As shown in Figure 1, this is achieved by dividing the functionality between four domains, each defined using a different standard from the Object Management Group (OMG):

• Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is used for business process modeling (process flows)

• Case Management Model and Notation (CMMN) is used for user interaction modeling (case models)

• Decision Model and Notation (DMN) is used for decision modeling (Decision Requirements Diagrams)

• Unified Modeling Language (UML) is used for data modeling (Entity Relationship Diagrams) and state modeling (State Transition Models).

Diagrams are color-coded for clarity, and there are strict constraints on how models are interlinked.

From DRDs to xDRAW: A short history and definitions

FICO facilitates decision service development for its clients using a methodology called Decision Requirements Analysis, developed by Dr. Alan Fish, Principal Consultant, FICO Decision Solutions, and documented in his book, Knowledge Automation: How to Implement Decision Management in Business Processes (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012). Key elements of this methodology include:

• Decision Requirements Analysis (DRA): Integrates the activities required to discover, document, develop, and maintain decision rules with your preferred systems development methodology, maximizing the likelihood that decision rules will be a success in your organization. DRA takes a domain of decision-making and decomposes it into a network of decisions, represented in a DRD.

• Decision Requirement Diagram (DRD): A diagram that shows not just all component decisions, but analytic models, rule sets, scorecards, decision tables, or whatever the natural business representations are for the decision logic. The DRD contains three types of nodes: decisions, knowledge, and data. These are linked by arrows that indicate requirements.

• DRA Workshop (DRAW): A collaborative workshop involving FICO consultants and client subject matter experts, where we develop a model of the domain of decision-making.

The OMG (including FICO in the DMN Task Force) incorporated DRDs into the DMN standard, providing them with a precise and executable semantics. OMG now promotes the combined use of BPMN, CMMN and DMN as the “Triple Crown” of decision and process improvement standards, sometimes referred to as BPM+. The FICO Extended DRA Workshop methodology is therefore based on workshops covering all three Triple Crown elements, not just DMN.

• xDRAW: The DRAW methodology, extended to cover detailed modeling of business processes and user interactions.

• BPMN: A graphical notation for modeling business processes.

• CMMN: A graphical notation for modeling case management, especially useful when defining the functionality of user interfaces.

• DMN: A graphical notation for modeling decisions and rules.

© 2020 Fair Isaac Corporation. All rights reserved. 3

Diagnostic & DescriptiveDecision ManagementFICO® xDRAW

FICO® xDRAW divides the functionality of a system into three domains — a process model, a case model, and a decision model — all mapped to an underlying data model and state model.

Figure 1: FICO® xDRAW combines multiple models to define all aspects of a project

Data Model State Model

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© 2020 Fair Isaac Corporation. All rights reserved. 4

Diagnostic & DescriptiveDecision ManagementFICO® xDRAW

In this simple example, the Process Model shows that when an application is received, an Auto-Assess application decision service is called, returning two decisions: Case Handling and Eligibility. If the Case Handling decision is “Auto,” the Eligibility decision is used to route the application automatically to Accept or Decline. If the Case Handling decision is “Manual,” a Determine application case is opened with a caseworker. The Case Model shows what the caseworker may do. She may edit the application, in which case the decision service is called again, and the results are made available to the caseworker. She may also refer the case to Legal to obtain their advice. When satisfied, she may make her determination, and this closes the case; the Process Model then routes the case to Accept or Decline based on the determination. The Decision Model shows how the decision service makes the Case Handling and Eligibility decisions, and what areas of business knowledge and data are required. Any data objects in these three models (e.g., the application data) are mapped to a Data Model, and any events (e.g., legal referral) are mapped to a State Model.

Requirements workshopsThese models are developed collaboratively in business requirements workshops facilitated by FICO consultants, usually lasting between one and two weeks. The models are projected onto a screen and gradually extended using a top-down approach until the participants agree that the full scope is covered. This approach fosters a sense of shared ownership in the project objectives and is very flexible; it is easy to accommodate new ideas arising during the discussion. After the workshops, the FICO consultants

use the models to prepare a detailed functional scoping document, which is reviewed and signed off by the business.

The benefits of open standards modeling Because the notations used are all open standards from the OMG, there is no ambiguity in the requirements. There are other benefits, too: expertise, background materials, and modeling tools (such as FICO® DMN Modeler, currently available as a complimentary download) are readily available globally, and the participants will pick up skills that are reusable on other projects. In addition, since no proprietary techniques are used, the functional scoping document produced by FICO is portable and provides you with complete flexibility in terms of how you develop and deploy your solution.

Using model-based requirements to manage delivery projectsThe functional scoping document contains models in three separate domains, which provide the starting points for three parallel workstreams: process, user, and decision. In each stream, the models are elaborated into detailed designs (which are carried out separate from the workshops), and recorded in a workbook that becomes the specification for development and testing. FICO® xDRAW allows functionality to be partitioned simply by drawing boundaries on diagrams, and so is compatible with waterfall, iterative, and agile project methodologies. This process results in the delivery of self-contained functional components and allows full traceability of those components back to the original business requirements.

The three main domains of functional models provide the starting point for three delivery streams. In each stream, the models are elaborated into a detailed design specified in a workbook, used to manage the delivery.

Figure 2: FICO® xDRAW project streams

Processstream

Userstream

Decisionstream

xDRAW: Functional scoping

Processmodel

Casemodel

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Detailed requirementsand design

Processworkbook

UIworkbook

Decisionworkbook

Delivery Workflows Userinterfaces

Decisionservice

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To learn more about how FICO® xDRAW can provide the best possible start for your project, visit our external community at community.fico.com/s/blaze-advisor-and-decision-modeler. We’re also happy to provide a brief demo and consultation if you wish.

A tried-and-tested approachFICO and its clients have been using the Decision Requirements Analysis Workshop (DRAW) methodology successfully for over a decade. FICO® xDRAW extends this approach to cover detailed modeling of the requirements for process management and user interactions, and so can cover the entire functionality of an automation project (e.g., using the FICO® Decision Management Suite). Workshops are conducted according to a simple standard agenda, and a textbook is commercially available describing the approach in detail. Running a project under FICO xDRAW reduces effort and risk, eliminates scope creep, and provides full traceability of the delivered components back to the original requirements. With FICO xDRAW, your project is in safe hands.