Decision Analysis Meets Identity Management

Those reading this blog have noticed a couple of areas of emphasis: decision analysis and identity management. At first blush, these seem quite unrelated. . . . what does an organization's ability to make decisions at all levels have to do with how it manages identities of people and assets?

Just about everything.

Organizational decision making, regardless of scope, includes a few essential ingredients:

1) A decision making process,
2) Data and tools required to make the decision, and
3) Decision makers.

The Burton Group coined a definition of Identity Management that is fairly widely used and includes three pieces:

1) Business processes,
2) Supporting infrastructure, and
3) digital identities.

Let's line these up and see what it looks like:

1) Process. The decision process is one of many processes influenced by effective identity management, and it is probably the most important one.
2) Identity-Based Decision Architecture. An infrastructure and architecture purpose built for effective decision making must include a coherent identity management component.
3) Decision Maker Identities. The identities of decision makers will drive which decisions they are permitted to make, how they make them, and what information to which they must have access.

Organizations may certainly approach identity management and decision analysis separately, but we think that the real power of each of these two important disciplines lies in their confluence.