Abstract Decision Tables

The Business Problem

Suppose you want to create a decision table that can figure out assignments of resources to suitable tasks.

You also want it to be applicable to the following situations:

• assigning nurses to patients
• assigning seats to passengers
• assigning gates to planes
• assigning pilots to planes
• assigning Xs to Ys (where you don't yet know what X and Y are)

Is this possible given that all these different scenarios have very little in common except for the notion of matching up a task to a suitable resource?

The BizVR Solution

The solution is to solve the matching problem with a decision table at the abstract level and allow the individual situations to supply their own specific rules. Here's what an abstract decision might look like:

The assignment decision table contains real rules but its conditions refer to abstract functions that have no implementation.

The abstract function might look like this:

Anyone wishing to use the abstract solution must supply their own implementation of those functions using rules that are specific to their particular situation.