by Ronald G. Ross

Co-Founder & Principal, Business Rule Solutions, LLC BRSolutions.com

Executive Editor, Business Rules Journal BRCommunity.com

Business Rules for Requirements and Processes:

Why Business Analysts Should Care – A Lot!

IIBA UK – 18 June, 2012

1 © Business Rule Solutions, LLC

Mr. Ross is recognized internationally as the “father of business rules.” He has served as Co-Chair of the annual Business Rules Forum Conference since 1997. He was a charter member of the Business Rules Group (BRG) in the 1980s, and an editor of the two landmark BRG papers, “The Business Motivation Model: Business Governance in a Volatile World” (2000, revised 2005, 2007) and the “Business Rules Manifesto” (2003). He is also active in OMG standards development for business rules and business models, including SBVR.

Mr. Ross is the author of nine professional books. His newest: Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules with Gladys S.W. Lam (2011), an IIBA Sponsored Handbook; Business Rule Concepts (2009), a third edition of his popular handbook, and Principles of the Business Rule Approach, Addison-Wesley (2003). An earlier work, The Business Rule Book (1994, 1997), was the seminal work in the field. Mr. Ross received his M.S. in information science from Illinois Institute of Technology, and his B.A. from Rice University.

Follow Ron on his blog via RonRoss.info and his tweets – Ronald_G_Ross

Ronald G. Ross is Co-Founder and Principal of Business Rule Solutions, LLC (BRSolutions.com). BRS provides workshops, consulting, publications, and methodology supporting business analysis, business rules, business vocabulary, decisioning, and rule management. His popular public seminars, the first on business rules (starting 1996) and the longest-running in the industry, are given through AttainingEdge in North America and IRM-UK in Europe.

Mr. Ross co-develops ProteusR, BRS’s landmark methodology, featuring numerous innovative techniques including the popular RuleSpeakR (free on RuleSpeak.com, now also in Spanish, German and Dutch). These are the latest offerings in a 35-year career that has consistently featured creative, business-driven solutions.

Mr. Ross is also Executive Editor and regular columnist of BRCommunity.com and its flagship on-line publication, Business Rules Journal. Sponsored by BRS, BRCommunity.com is a non-commercial vertical community for professionals working in the field. Mr. Ross was formerly Editor of the Data Base Newsletter from 1977 to 1998.

About Ronald G. Ross

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Is this a business rule?

Provide a feature to handle electronic funds transfer.

3

business rule

requirement

Provide a feature to handle electronic funds transfer.

Every employee expense reimbursement must be processed through electronic funds transfer.

4

Is this a business rule?

Customer provides account id. System displays account.

5

business rule

A customer must have a valid account.

use case statements

Customer provides account id.

System displays account.

6

Is this a business rule?

If the overdrawn flag is set to ‘yes’, reject transaction.

7

business rules

1. An account must not be

overdrawn.

2. An account may be considered

overdrawn only if cash withdrawal

is greater than the current balance

of the account.

system if/then statement

If the overdrawn flag is set to ‘yes’,

reject transaction.

8

definition

business rule: criterion used in business operations to …

• guide behavior

• shape judgments

• make decisions

9

business rule

A customer must be assigned to an agent

if the customer has placed an order.

when can a business rule be violated?

10

“Use cases (in the classic definition) contain quite high-level information and do not drill down to the level of the business rules.”

senior software engineer

where do business rules come from?

11

EBOOK AGENCY/COMMISSIONAIRE DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT

This Agreement is between, on the one hand, the Apple entities appointed as agent or commissionaire on Exhibit A hereto

(collectively and individually, as the context requires, "Apple"), and, on the other hand, the legal entity associated with the iTunes

Connect account through which this Agreement is executed ("Publisher"), and is effective as of the date it is electronically signed

through iTunes Connect (the "Effective Date").

Apple desires to be appointed as Publisher's agent (in those countries listed in Exhibit A, Section 1) or commissionaire (in those

countries listed in Exhibit A, Section 2) for the sale and delivery of digital books under certain conditions as set out in this

Agreement and Publisher is willing to appoint Apple as its agent or commissionaire, as the case may be, under such conditions.

In consideration of mutual promises, Apple and Publisher (each a "Party" and collectively, "Parties") hereby agree as follows:

1. Definitions. The following terms shall have the following meanings for purposes of this Agreement:

(a) "Artwork" means book covers, photos, drawings, and illustrations associated with Publisher Content, including any artwork that

is included in copies of Publisher Content in digital format, and which has been provided by or on behalf of Publisher to Apple. All

Artwork provided to Apple shall have been cleared for Apple's use for the purposes of performing its functions under this

Agreement.

(b) "Commissionaire" means that a non-risk bearing agent acts in its own name but on the account of a principal.

3. Publisher Obligations.

(a) Publisher acknowledges that the breadth of eBook offerings on the Online Store is of the essence of the Agreement and the

successful appointment. Publisher shall endeavor to make all Publisher Content (including revisions, re-printings, updates etc.)

available to Apple under its appointment, and, subject to the terms of this appointment, in no event less than the Publisher Content

it provides to any other electronic distributor, agent, commissionaire, or other representative of Publisher's content in digital form.

(b) Publisher shall not discriminate against Apple with respect to the permitted usage rules, functionality, and quality of any

Publisher Content, as compared to the terms under which such Publisher Content is supplied to any other electronic distributor,

agent, commissionaire, or other representative of Publisher's content in digital form.

(c) Except for a limited-time, one-off promotion for a particular item of Publisher Content, or in the event of a specific objection by

an author as to a specific New Release, Publisher shall provide and make available New Releases to Apple under its appointment

on the same day and date as Publisher makes any New Release otherwise available to end-users in any format, including physical

copies.

laws acts statutes regulations contracts agreements business deals business policies licenses certifications warranties etc.

where business rules come from 12

these diamonds always represent business rules … which are best defined independently

embedding diamonds will hopelessly complicate your model

Claimant

Take Claim

Information

Verify Basic

Claim

Information

Adjudicate

Claim

makes claim

if valid claim

if claim

denied

if claim accepted

if policy

number

missing

if policy

number

invalid

if policy

expired

If claimant

name invalid

If no

location

given

If …

how many “if ’s”?!

no

no

no

no

no

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

if fraud suspected

never embed diamonds

many operational business decisions

aren’t binary!

what do business rules do for business processes?

13

Verify Basic Claim

Information

Adjudicate Claim

best practice for business process models …

no embedded evaluation criteria in conditional flows … just transforms and hand-offs!

if valid claim

business rule … A claim may be considered valid only if it has all the following:

an active policy a claimant an incident

This conditional flow probably involves many business rules!

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behavioral rules decision rules

what kinds of business rules are there?

15

behavioral rules

example …

A gold customer must be allowed

access to the warehouse.

this rule can be violated!

definitional rules

example …

A customer is always considered a

gold customer if the customer places

more than 12 orders during a

calendar year.

this rule might be ill-conceived,

misunderstood, or misapplied …

… but it cannot be directly

violated.

violating business rules 16

behavioral rules

1. How strictly should each business

rule be enforced?

2. What message is appropriate

when a violation occurs?

3. What business response is

needed?

17

sample enforcement

levels

description

strictly enforced

violations disallowed in all cases – achieving some new state successfully always prevented

override by pre-authorized actor

the behavioral rule is enforced, but an actor with proper before-the-fact authorization may override it

override with explanation

the behavioral rule may be overridden simply by providing an explanation

guideline

suggested, but not enforced

enforcement level 18

what message is

appropriate when

a violation

occurs?

violation message 19

business rule

violation action

• The total number of hours worked by an employee during a 24-hour period must not exceed 18 consecutive hours.

• Notify Manager

violation response 20

? ability to identify the

type of material a truck carries

ability to provide routing for trucks

ability to identify downtown areas

ability to provide special routing for

trucks carrying hazardous materials

what do business rules do for requirements?

21

A truck carrying hazardous

material must not be routed through

a downtown street.

ability to identify the type of material a truck

carries

ability to provide routing for trucks

ability to identify downtown areas

ability to provide special routing for

trucks carrying hazardous materials

business rules establish motivation for functional requirements 22

today ...

functionality

design &

prototyping

testing

implementation

“requirements”

no separation of business logic from functional requirements

complex implementation cycle driven by IT

business workers

IT

how about the software development life cycle?

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1. separation of business rules from functional requirements

business workers

business rules

repository

IT

functional requirements

& use cases

functionality delivered

business rules

24

functional requirements

& use cases

functionality delivered

2. business rules pushed out toward business workers

business workers

general rulebook

system (GRBS)

IT

business rules

25

software release

cycle

3. liberation of business rules from the software release cycle

business workers

business rule

life cycle

IT

general rulebook

system (GRBS)

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takeaways

you’d need your business rules to run the

business even if you had no systems

business rules give you a way of ensuring consistency in business activity

business rules dramatically simplify business processes

without business rules, piecing together true business motivation is often difficult or impossible

it doesn’t take you longer

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An IIBA ® Sponsored Handbook

Building Business Solutions Business Analysis with Business Rules

http://www.brsolutions.com/publications

Business Rule Concepts Getting to the Point of Knowledge

28

happenings

our next Online Training Series …

July 17 – 19 … Business Analysis with Business Rules: from Strategy to Requirements … AttainingEdge.com

register with code ‘BRWork’ by July 3 and receive …

a 10% discount

comp copies of our 2 business rule books

BBC / Business Rules Forum 2012 conference

Oct. 28 - Nov. 2 … Ft. Lauderdale, FL

visit BRCommunity.com, home of the Business Rules Journal

contact us if we can provide assistance!

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Thank You!

Ronald G. Ross Business Rule Solutions, LLC

rross@BRSolutions.com

Follow Me: Twitter: @Ronald_G_Ross

Blog: www.RonRoss.info Q &

A

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