CROSS INDUSTRY

Directly Executable Business Requirements

Familiar business tools immediately turn business objectives into
responsive software

Overview
PegaRULES Process Commander (PRPC) is the award winning and market leading BPM suite that
provides unparalleled facilities for business agility. With over 25 years of experience in automating
policies and procedures, Pegasystems patented technology makes enterprise applications easy to build
and change by directly capturing business objectives and eliminating manual programming.
This paper will explain how PRPCs directly executable business requirements:
``Empower the business to make changes themselves, thus dramatically reducing the time it takes
to turn requirements into responsive software
``Continuously generate documentation, thus ensuring that the operational software and the
requirements are always synchronized
``Support zero-code model-driven development, thus eliminating paper specifications and all the
problems associated with traditional requirement-based approaches

Without Build for Change

When businesses identify the need to change their business applications, they
document their needs in terms of requirements. Depending upon the extent of
the changes, and the methodology in place, different techniques are used. For
a new application, a detailed requirements specification is completed. If the
change is small in nature, a less detailed specification is produced. Either way,
business stakeholders use documentation as a means to communicate changes
to an IT development group that will implement the changes.
There are a host of problems related to requirements specifications that hamper
agility, including:
``Requirements are slow to develop They require business users to
endure the arduous paper specification cycle that delays time to market
and increases cost to deliver.
``Requirements are thrown over the wall Written documents are
abruptly handed-off between business and IT, where they can be
misinterpreted.

PegaRULES Process
Commander (PRPC) is
the award winning and
market leading BPM
suite that provides
unparalleled facilities
for business agility

``Requirements get stale Because requirements documents are hard

to create, and are released to the team in versions, they often get stale
quickly.
``Requirements are hard to use The requirements balloon in size to where
they become unwieldy, burdensome, and hard to navigate.
Even though the above problems are well known, requirements documents
are still used because businesses must rely on IT to do the development. The
implementations often use complex technologies that require certain technical
skills such as Java development experience, and other programming skills.
Therefore, business users describe what they need, and they rely on IT to provide
the implementation.
The advent of the BPM process model was a big step forward in agility because it
enabled business users to collaborate with IT in the development of the system.
The approach to working with a process model, such as a flow, is intuitive,
and easy to use for business users or analysts. It doesnt require a technical
background.
What if we took this concept of business-enabled model-driven development and
expanded the BPM platform so that the applications were code-free and created
solely with models? What if we created guided wizards that could capture
high-level business objectives and generate the models that business users can
maintain? What if we could immediately execute the models even when they are
partially complete to verify them, and incrementally improve them? What would
be the affect on business agility? That is exactly what Pega has done, and the
results are staggering.

Pega Approach
The Pega approach is simple automate the programming by generating it from
models, forms and wizards that are easy for business analysts to use. Instead
of capturing requirements on paper, capture them in the system using familiar
and intuitive tools such as a browser, Microsoft Visio, or Microsoft Excel.
Once a model such as a flow, user interface, or business rule has been created,
it is immediately executable, even if its only partially complete. This facilitates
immediate testing, validation, and incremental development.
The approach of generating the code - rather than manually developing it provides a tremendous productivity increase in terms of application development
times. Kanbay, a subsidiary of Capgemini, authored the study Pega BPM vs.
Eclipse IDE. It compares the time needed to develop an application in PRPC with
the time needed to develop an identical application using Java and Eclipse. This
study sheds light on the business agility problems of using Eclipse and Java for
BPM development which is the approach that many BPM platforms take.
Kanbay established two separate teams to conduct the study. One team used
version 5.2 of the Pegasystems PRPC suite, and the other team used the Eclipse
IDE for Java development. To ensure consistency the two teams had comparable
skill levels and the results were peer reviewed. The results demonstrated that
by allowing users to directly capture their policies and procedures into our PRPC
software, a huge reduction in the time it takes to plan, test, and deploy solutions
was realized. The results showed that application development using PRPC is
five and a half times faster than Eclipse. This figure rises to seven times faster
when Kanbays team incorporated business changes into the application.

PRPC Directly Executable Business Requirements

Below are five key capabilities that enable business users to capture and
immediately execute their requirements directly in the system.
1. Application Profiler The Application Profiler (AP) is a component of
PRPCs Directly Capture Objectives (DCO) Solution. It is a businessfriendly wizard that is run at the start of a project to develop a new
application. It captures the business requirements and high-level
objectives of the project. Business users find the APs guided approach
easy to use and timesaving. It applies best practices in gathering
requirements, thereby providing a consistent and non-variant approach
across PRPC application development projects.
The AP begins by capturing the high-level business objectives, a project
description, and the overall project estimates. Descriptions of the
application, including use cases, are captured. Key project planning
parameters, such as the assumptions, roles, responsibilities, tasks, and
resources are also gathered. Following the completion of this wizard,
an Application Profile and a high-level project scope document are
generated. The entire team benefits because they can now access the
objectives directly in the system.
The AP streamlines the capture of objectives, provides a consistent
approach with best practices, and guides the business users with an
easy-to-use process that eliminates the need for training.
2. Application Accelerator The Application Accelerator is another
component of the DCO Solution. It is a business-friendly wizard that
continues gathering new application requirements where the AP left
off. Like the AP, this guided process simplifies the task of requirements
gathering and ensures that best practices are used. The Application
Accelerator begins by selecting the Application Profile, and specifying the
type of application structure that will be generated. Use case information
that was entered in the AP can be reviewed and modified. Requirements
for reporting and correspondence that were specified in the AP are
augmented with the report names, report types (summary chart, bar, pie,
etc.), and a description of each report. Names are specified for various
elements that will be generated.

Upon completion, the Application Accelerator generates an application

structure. Besides saving significant time, this approach applies best
practices to the generated application structure (including the class
names, inheritance relationships, and ruleset names). Further
requirements, such as a flow, user interface and business rules can now
be directly captured in the system and immediately executed.
This approach supports fast, incremental development that results
in superior deployment time compared to the traditional requirementsbased approach.
3. Visio Flow Definitions and Immediate Playback Flows are directly
captured in the system, and are immediately execution enabled for
experimentation. Even without completing the implementation behind
each shape - such as the business rules or user interfaces the flow can
still run. The system supplies default behavior for the missing rules.
In the early stages of an application, this capability lets the business
users capture requirements and focus on the big picture, delaying
implementation details until the flow has been validated. The immediate
playback capabilities allow a business user to focus on experiencing
the execution of the flow to validate that the requirements have been
captured correctly. Once validated, the flow is iteratively refined by adding
implementation the details.
The Immediate Playback capability is also used when modifying a preexisting application. The business can quickly make the changes directly
to the flow and use the playback capabilities to verify the behavior.

Figure 1:
Visio Flow in Draft Mode is
Executable.

4. Drag and Drop UI Because the user interface is developed visually by

dragging and dropping UI components onto a canvas - instead of coding
directly in HTML, JavaScript, or AJAX - business users can easily create
and maintain the user interface. The instant preview capabilities allow
the user interface to be displayed even if it is only partially completed.
For instance, a user interface form can be immediately previewed prior to
mapping properties to the fields on the form.

Figure 2:
Drag and Drop User Interface
Can be Previewed.

5. Continuous Documentation The Continuous Documentation Wizard,

which is also part of the DCO Solution, generates documentation justin-time from the system. It begins by guiding the user to select the
aspects of the requirements or application that should be included in the
document. The documentation template can be selected. Screenshots
can be captured and included in the generated documentation. Upon
its completion, this wizard generates a Microsoft Word document that
contains a cover page, a hypertext-linked table of contents, and any of the
flows, UI components, or business rules that were selected.
This capability provides teams with current and accurate documentation
in order to work collaboratively. Because development in PRPC is fast,
dynamic, and iterative - continuous documentation generation ensures
everyone is on the same page.

Benefits With Build for Change Technology

The benefits of Directly Executable Business Requirements are numerous.
Because the wizards and models generate the implementation, these capabilities
can be best described as automating the programming. They provide the
following benefits:
``Business users make changes directly, facilitating a faster, incremental
development using a familiar and intuitive approach.
``Requirements are created more accurately because they can be verified
and visualized directly in the system.
``Subsequent development builds iteratively on the models created by
business users and stays aligned with the requirements.
``The problems associated with throwing requirements over the wall are
replaced with a collaborative and coordinated approach of iterative modelbased development.
``Stale and cumbersome paper specifications are eliminated.
``Documentation can be generated at anytime from the system and it is
always up to date.

Examples of Build for Change at Work

These Build for Change capabilities that dramatically increase agility can be
leveraged in any BPM application. Below are some representative examples that
demonstrate the types of immediate change that can be implemented in PRPC.
``In an application that generates new business for an insurance company,
an insurance product manager updates a Microsoft Excel chart to set auto
policy eligibility criteria directly in the system. It becomes immediately
available to the new business web application.
``In a customer relationship management application, a customer service
representative (CSR) supervisor updates a skill-based dialog script
directly on the end-user screen. The new script is instantly used for all
CSRs in her team.
``Across a service foundation of end-to-end BPM processes, a business
analyst needs to change a process to force supervisory approval on
all credit write-offs across the business. He updates a Microsoft Visio
diagram and the process change is applied throughout the enterprise.
``In a risk fraud and compliance application, a fraud analyst models
processes and enters use cases directly in the system instead of writing
requirements. The system immediately generates a working prototype.
These are just a few examples of the value of having business users immediately
make changes in the system. The business results are staggering customers of
Pegasystems routinely seen improvements in productivity of 40% or more.

In closing
Pegasystems directly executable business requirements make enterprise
applications easy to build and change by eliminating manual programming.
Using familiar and intuitive business tools, objectives are turned into responsive
software. Paper-based requirements are eliminated. Business users can
make changes directly in the system. Documentation is always up to date and in
alignment with the system.
``The Application Profiler captures high-level project objectives, constraints,
and use cases.
``The Application Accelerator gathers additional requirements and
generates an application that is immediately executable.
``Flow models are easy to create with Visio and are immediately executable.
``User interface rules are created via a drag and drop metaphor that
supports instant preview.
``Documentation is continuously generated from the system.
Pegasystems award winning PegaRULES Process Commander is the leading
and only BPM suite that provides businesses with the agility they need to be
competitive in todays rapidly changing world.

About Pegasystems
Pegasystems, the leader in business process management and software for customer centricity,
helps organizations enhance customer loyalty, generate new business, and improve productivity. Our
patented Build for Change technology speeds the delivery of critical business solutions by directly
capturing business objectives and eliminating manual programming. Pegasystems flexible onpremise and cloud-based solutions enable clients to quickly adapt to changing business conditions
in order to outperform the competition. For more information, please visit us at www.pega.com.

Copyright 2010 Pegasystems Inc. All rights reserved. PegaRules, Process Commander, Pega BPM and the
Pegasystems logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pegasystems Inc. All other product names,
logos and symbols may be registered trademarks of their respective owners.
2012-4