It is Christmas time. Time that is all about love and family. So it broke my heart when reading the story about that Australian couple Hayley and Jamie that couldn’t get married because government processes are not yet ready to handle same gender marriages after promising immediate recognition of marriages performed overseas. Here you can read the full story.
While that shortcoming is tough for affected couples, fundamental process design issues can be identified as a root cause. A spokesperson of Department of Human Services (DHS) said “Our current IT system houses layers of complex business rules and processes which can mean seemingly simple changes can have unforeseen impacts on other parts of the system.” While DHS currently is introducing SAP software for most of their processes, that same gender marriages process still is being handled by a legacy system that embeds business rules in the code. Which is not the best approach as any rule changes, like introducing same gender marriages, come with a full software development process. Additionally business rules become pretty much unmaintainable. That is why SAP strictly separates processes from business rules in all solutions including Tax and Revenue Management and Social Protection. By doing so rules can be changed or extended quickly and easily by business domain experts without reaching out for IT support. For details please refer to another blog I posted earlier this year.
Let’s hope the best for Hayley and Jamie, and let’s keep our fingers crossed that they will receive marriage recognition as soon as possible.
While that shortcoming is tough for affected couples, fundamental process design issues can be identified as a root cause. A spokesperson of Department of Human Services (DHS) said “Our current IT system houses layers of complex business rules and processes which can mean seemingly simple changes can have unforeseen impacts on other parts of the system.” While DHS currently is introducing SAP software for most of their processes, that same gender marriages process still is being handled by a legacy system that embeds business rules in the code. Which is not the best approach as any rule changes, like introducing same gender marriages, come with a full software development process. Additionally business rules become pretty much unmaintainable. That is why SAP strictly separates processes from business rules in all solutions including Tax and Revenue Management and Social Protection. By doing so rules can be changed or extended quickly and easily by business domain experts without reaching out for IT support. For details please refer to another blog I posted earlier this year.
Let’s hope the best for Hayley and Jamie, and let’s keep our fingers crossed that they will receive marriage recognition as soon as possible.
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