In the example shown
in Exhibit 5.3, the root node on the first level presents the liquidity attribute, and the
return attribute is located on the second level of the decision tree.
ESTABLISHING BUSINESS RULES. Business scenarios are simply variations of static rules that
should be assigned to each depicted attribute in a decision tree. These rules provide quantification
mechanisms for evaluating attributes8 and describe logical behaviors of business activities that
may be implemented in future service construction. Effective decision trees, however, should
depict conditions that go beyond the scope of business requirements. Thus, the values assigned
to these attributes should cover a wide range of business scenarios and broaden the concept
categorization scale. For example, the risk investment attribute can be assigned high, low, or
medium values to cover most product risk variations.
What are the various value types that can be assigned to attributes? These values can
simply be numeric comparisons, such as investment time=3 years. They can denote ranges??”for
instance investment value $5,000 ?‰¤ $10,000. Or they can be quantifiable properties, for example
risk=high, or allocated Boolean values, such as high investment return=true/yes.
Before a decision tree is populated with various rule scenarios, it is recommended that the
business variation rules be expressed in a typical if/then/else format for the sake of simplicity,
similar to the following defined rules:
IF liquidity=y AND return=y THEN concept 1
IF liquidity=y AND return=n THEN concept 2
Conceptual Service Identification and Categorization 93
High
Liquidity?
High
Return?
High
Return?
Sweet Spot
Attributes
(Liquidity,
Return)
Business Priority
Level 1
Business Priority
Level 2
Y
Y
N
Y N N
1 2 3 4
EXHIBIT 5.
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