Business Rules User Group (BRUG)


The Business Rules User Group (BRUG) provides a setting for both business and technical members to gain and share knowledge about business rule and inference engine technologies, projects, and initiatives AND network. Whether you have been involved with automated business rules for years or are just attempting to understand its benefits for your organization, you are welcome at the Business Rules User Group.

Meetings are generally held three times a year. Artemis Alliance, a consulting firm with a specific focus in business rules management, is the founder and sponsor of the Business Rules User Group. After meeting with several companies, Artemis saw a clear need for a venue that supported communication about this critical topic and technology.

Most Recent Meeting

Date:

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 from 3-6:30 PM (Central)

Location:

Courtyard Mall of America.

Topic:

Business Rule Initiatives: Effective Teams and Organizational Structure

Building the Modern Enterprise for Business Rules
Brian Stucky, Vice President of Knowledge Management, InScope Solutions, Inc. discussed approaches to establishing a development methodology based on core concepts of stewardship and governance of rules, suggested ways to effectively structure teams and entire organizations to effectively move forward with business rules and used two case studies (IRS and Freddie Mac) to illustrate his points.

Effective Teams, Effective Organization – Successful Business Rules Initiative
Michael Krouze, Chief Technology Officer, and Alyce Neperud, Principal and Senior Consultant, both of Artemis Alliance, Inc. discussed how to evaluate your organization’s readiness for a BRI and how to create and energize effective teams. The emphasis was on lessons learned, pitfalls to avoid, and success strategies.

The presentations were followed by a general Q&A and sharing of experiences by the presenters and the attendees.

Special thanks to ILOG or sponsoring the webcast.

For copies of the presentations or if you have any comments or questions, contact Laura Mickelson at lmickelson@artemisalliance.com or 651-227-7172.

For future reference, the next meetings of the Business Rules User Group will be in late September/early October.

 
Previous Meetings

Date: Thursday, March 8th from 3-5 PM (Central)
Location: Courtyard Mall of America.
Topic:

Enterprise Repository Management:

Jon Pellant, Chief Technologist, Pegasystems Inc., discussed removing heavy development (SDLC) process and automating changes to business rules.  

Presentation: Mastering Change

Walter Ritschel, Corporate Architecture, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Minnesota, presented a case study detailing recent business rules implementation projects.

Presentation: Rules Implementation - BCBSMN

Krzysztof Karski, Senior Consultant, Artemis Alliance, Inc., discussed the benefits of a business rules repository and compared this to CRM and RMS.

Presentation: Enterprise Business Rule Repositories

Special thanks to Pegasystems for sponsoring the webcast.   

 

Date: Thursday, April 20, 4-7pm
Location: University of St. Thomas, 3M Auditorium in Owens Science Hall (location sponsored by Artemis Alliance)
Topic: Pitfalls and Lessons Learned

Michael Krouze, Alyce Neperud, and Krzysztof Karski from Artemis Alliance kicked off the meeting. From their experience, they shared pitfalls of rules adoption and some considerations and techniques to avoid them. Michael presented from a management point of view, Krzysztof from a technical implementation viewpoint, and Alyce from an analysis and rules capture perspective.

Presentation: Pitfalls & Lessons Learned

Paul Durfee from Country Insurance and Financial Services followed with a presentation entitled ‘Moving Existing Business Rules into a Rules Engine.’ The primary challenge was to move the existing business rules to the new architecture without impacting the mainframe. Based his 13 years of rules engine experience which includes this project, Paul provided interesting insight including his lessons learned and best practices.

Presentation: Moving Existing Business Rules into JRules

Meg Lattery concluded the meeting with a very detailed and complete case study of a business rules initiative for the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency on Methodology, Tools and Techniques to Support a Collaborative Implementation of a Loan Origination System. The project goal was to “Transform the way the MN Homes Division does business with their Mortgage Lending Partners, Administrators of their loan products, the designated MHFA Trustee and MHFA’s Servicing Partner(s).”

Presentation: Methodology, Tools and Techniques to Support a Collaborative Implementation of a Loan Origination System

View the BRUG Newsletter On-Line

 

Date: Thursday, August 25, 3-7pm
Location: University of St. Thomas, 3M Auditorium in Owens Science Hall (location sponsored by Artemis Alliance)
Topic: Michael Krouze, CTO for Artemis Alliance, kicked off with a presentation entitled 'Demystifying Business Rules Engines: A Non-Technical Explanation of how BREs Work and Why They’re So Cool.' The presentation targeted both business and technical people so they can appreciate the basics of how business rules engines do their job. He also defined the common terms people hear when speaking to rules engine vendors (backward chaining, forward chaining, RETE, etc.).

Equifax, a leading information services provider, discussed its decision to implement a business rules management system (BRMS) as part of its InterConnect decisioning platform. In its address, Equifax highlighted how the integration of BRMS technology has enabled the company to take its decisioning products to the next level, resulting in improved internal processes and enhanced business performance. The presentation also included a testimonial from an InterConnect customer, who spoke to the strategic benefits of an enterprise decisioning platform with a business rules-based foundation.

 

Date: Thursday, June 16, 3-7pm
Location: University of Saint Thomas (location sponsored by Artemis Alliance)
Topic: Bill Griffin of Haley conducted a corporate overview and presentation. Bulent Ugurlu, lead technical architect for Optum (a subsidiary of Specialized Care Services under UnitedHealth Group), will conclude the presentations discussing their rules engine selection process, framework built, and lessons learned regarding the evaluation and use of a business rules engine for their CRM and Nurseline application. Q&A and an open forum discussion will follow for the remainder of the meeting.

 

Date: Thursday, April 14, 3-7pm
Location: University of Saint Thomas (location sponsored by Artemis Alliance)
Topic: Donna Hentges, CEO of Artemis Alliance, presented on bridging the communication gap and obtaining buy-in from business.  Fair Isaac followed with a presentation related to their Blaze Advisor application.  Brian Carlson from eBenX, a SHPS Company, presented on his experience with a rule-based solution for the SHPS Spending Account Management System.  The meeting concluded with a Q&A and an open forum discussion.

 

Date:

February 3, 2005

Location:

University of Saint Thomas (location sponsored by Artemis Alliance)

Topic:

The content of the meeting focused on standards and best practices in business rules.  The meeting started out with four 15-25 minute presentations followed by Q&A and open forum discussion.  Panelists were from Best Buy, COUNTRY Insurance and Financial Services, Ingenix (subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group), and Optum (subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group).  ILOG concluded the meeting with a JRules demo.

 
Date: November 18, 2004
Location: University of Saint Thomas (location sponsored by Artemis Alliance)
Topic: Business Rules Engine Vendor/Product Analysis and Discussion

If you would like a copy of the vendor matrix, please contact Wyatt Wood.


Date:

September 15, 2004

Location:

University of Saint Thomas (location sponsored by Artemis Alliance)

Recap:

Case Study: A Rule Based Architecture for Insurance Policy Production
Michael Krouze, Chief Technology Officer, Artemis Alliance

If you would like the PowerPoint slides for this presentation, send an email to Wyatt Wood.


Last updated: Friday, June 10