Many authors believe and write about how Business Decisions are just Diamonds in a Process Model. I have made that mistake myself in the past.

But are your Business Decisions just diamonds in your process flow?

Just because some BPM tools make you believe it is, would you settle for something that obviously is not the case.

Are all business decisions just diamonds on a process diagram? Lets see.

These are diamonds

• Is Applicant Eligible (Eligibility Rules)
• Is Valid Application

These are not Diamonds

• Compute Tax (Tax Calculation Rules)
• Compute Claim
• Compute Agent Score
• Compute Loan Price
• Compute Rental

So, when you are modeling your business processes, how would you model and account for such business decisions in your process?

I have argued many times about how process automation != decision automation.This is a very important difference to remember because how you take your decisions(business rules) are more volatile than your business process

And it is critical that you recognize this early and adopt an appropriate methodology to operationalize your business decisions such that you can change the rules as often as the need arises.

On a related note, here is a good introduction to Business Decision Automation using Rule Engines.