Identifying Challenges in Business Rules Management Implementations Regarding the Governance Capability at Governmental Institutions

As the number of BRMS-implementations increases, more and more organizations search for guidance to design such solutions. Given these premises, more implementation challenges experienced from practice become evident. In this study, we identify the main challenges regarding the governance capability as part of BRM, in the Dutch governmental context. To be able to do so, we utilized a four-round focus group and a three-round Delphi study set-up to collect our data. The analysis resulted in eight implementation challenges experienced by the participants. The presented results provide a grounded basis from which empirical and practical research on best practices can be further explored

Process Mining in The Rail Industry: A Qualitative Analysis of Success Factors and Remaining Challenges

This paper aims to identify success factors and remaining challenges relevant to the practice of process mining in the rail industry. Process mining is a method for analyzing processes based on event logs. In a case study, we examine three process mining projects performed at the largest rail organization in The Netherlands. Experiences gained in these projects are compared to success factors specified in literature. The projects were analyzed using observations, secondary data collection and semi-structured interviews. We were able to identify all success factors specified in literature in the case study. In addition, several new success factors are identified. These concern challenges regarding the implementation of process mining software, intra-organizational knowledge sharing and continuous availability of event logs. For the additional success factors identified, it was not yet possible to determine if they are industry specific or generic in nature

Applying the Decision Model and Notation in Practice: A Method to Design and Specify Business Decisions and Business Logic

Proper decision-making is one of the most important capabilities of an organization. Therefore, it is important to make explicit all decisions that are relevant to manage for an organization. In 2015 the Object Management Group published the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard that focuses on modelling business decisions and underlying business logic. DMN is being adopted at an increas-ing rate, however, theory does not adequately cover activities or methods to guide practitioners mod-elling with DMN. To tackle this problem this paper presents a method to guide the modelling process of business decisions with DMN. The method has been validated and improved with an experiment using thirty participants. Based on this method, future research could focus on further validation and improvement by using more participants from different industries

What Other Factors Might Impact Building Trust in Government Decisions Based on Decision Support Systems, Except for Transparency and Explainability?

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are increasingly being used to support operational decision-making using large amounts of data. One key aspect to successful adoption is that the user trusts the DSS. Large contributors to trust often mentioned in literature and practice are transparency and explainability. But what happens when a DSS is transparent and explainable by design? What other contributors to trust are relevant is the main focus of this paper, in the context of Dutch governmental subject-matter experts designing and working with DSSs. We used a Mixed-Method Sequential Explanatory Design in which a survey was conducted to gather empirical data. The findings present 20 focal points contributing toward trust in DSS. These focal points require future research, specifically on considering these for development by the design of a DSS. Ultimately, this could help in increasing the adoption of DSSs in general

Utilizing Algorithms for Decision Mining Discovery

Organizations are executing operational decisions in fast changing environments, which increases the necessity for managing these decisions adequately. Information systems store information about such decisions in decision- and event logs that could be used for analyzing decisions. This study aims to find relevant algorithms that could be used to mine decisions from such decision- and event logs, which is called decision mining. By conducting a literature review, together with interviews conducted with experts with a scientific background as well as participants with a commercial background, relevant classifier algorithms and requirements for mining decisions are identified and mapped to find algorithms that could be used for the discovery of decisions. Five of the twelve algorithms identified have a lot of potential to use for decision mining, with small adaptations, while six out of the twelve do have potential but the required adaptation would demand too many alterations to their core design. One of the twelve was not suitable for the discovery of decisions

A Business Rules Management Reference Process for the Dutch Government

Business Rules Management (BRM) is increasingly being applied in the governmental context. However, currently, many of those governmental institutions apply different BRM processes, but are expected to work together in their task of delivering products and services to citizens and companies in the Netherlands. An initiative from the Dutch government was started with the goal to investigate currently applied processes and develop a BRM reference process to promote cooperation. This paper elaborates upon the process of comparison of currently applied BRM processes and development of the BRM reference process for the Dutch government. The resulting BRM reference process consists of seven main processes with twenty sub-processes and a common vocabulary which can guide (Dutch) governmental organizations to design and implement their BRM solution as well as to achieve better cooperation due to increased commonality. In terms of future research, the emphasis should lie on more thorough validation, using quantitative research methods, but we argue that other industries should be explored as well

The Decision Transparency Framework: A framework and key transparency indicators to measure the business decisions and business logic transparency

Business decisions and business logic are an important part of an organization’s daily activities. In the not so near past they were modelled as integrative part of business processes, however, during the last years, they are managed as a separate entity. Still, decisions and underlying business logic often remain a black box. Therefore, the call for transparency increases. Current theory does not provide a measurable and quantitative way to measure transparency for business decisions. This paper extends the understanding of different views on transparency with regards to business decisions and underlying business logic and presents a framework including Key Transparency Indicators (KTI) to measure the transparency of business decisions and business logic. The framework is validated by means of an experiment using case study data. Results show that the framework and KTI’s are useful to measure transparency. Further research will focus on further refinement of the measurements as well as further validation of the current measurement

A Framework for Traceability of Legal Requirements in the Dutch Governmental Context

In the past decades, research and practice focused a lot of attention towards traceability in the context of software requirements, food supply chains, manufacturing, and aviation industry. As legislation and regulations in software systems become increasingly relevant, traceability of legal requirements is of great importance. In this study, we aimed to create a framework in which the basis for traceability of legal requirements is addressed. To be able to do so we conducted five case studies at five Dutch governmental institutions, which was followed by a three-round focus group. The resulting framework comprises 22 (layered) traceability elements in relation to three domains that offers a reference model to determine how traceability can be applied in software system design, in the context of the Dutch government

Identifying Challenges in Business Rules Management Implementations regarding the Elicitation, Design, and Specification Capabilities at Dutch Governmental Institutions

Proper decision making represent one of an organization’s most important capabilities. To manage decisions and underlying business rules, an increasing number of organizations have begun to use business rules management (BRM). However, given BRM research’s and practice’s nascence, we need to more deeply understand the challenges in implementing BRM capabilities. As such, from collecting and analyzing two three-round focus groups and two three-round Delphi studies, we identified 28 main challenges that five Dutch governmental institutions experienced in eliciting, designing, and specifying business rules. We also discuss directions for future research

Responsible AI and Power: Investigating the System Level Bureaucrat in the Legal Planning Process

Numerous statements and pamphlets indicate that governments should increase the transparency of ICT-implementations and algorithms in eGovernment services and should encourage democratic control. This paper presents research among civil servants, suppliers and experts who play a role in the automation of spatial policymaking and planning (e.g. environment, building, sound and CO2 regulation, mobility). The case is a major digitalisation programme of that spatial planning in the Netherlands. In this digital transition, the research assumption is that public and political values such as transparency, legitimacy and (perceived) fairness are difficult to validate in the practice of the design process; policy makers tend to lose sight of the algorithms and decision trees designed during the ICT -implementation of eGovernment services. This situation would implicate a power shift towards the system level bureaucrat. i.e., the digitized execution of laws and regulations, thereby threatening democratic control. This also sets the stage for anxiety towards ICT projects and digital bureaucracies. We have investigated perceptions about ‘validation dark spots’ in the design process of the national planning platform that create unintended shifts in decision power in the context of the legal planning process. To identify these validation dark spots, 22 stakeholders were interviewed. The results partially confirm the assumption. Based on the collected data, nine validation dark spots are identified that require more attention and research