A short & plain english definition of Business Rules, which are a key element in systems definition. In theory, you can express a system entirely through the constructs of Business Rules. However, in practice, there is a law of diminishing returns in this effort, which the practitioner begins to sense through experience. The need to identify business rules as early as possible in the discovery phase is increasingly driven by the possibility to feed these rules together with process maps and thereby automatically generate executable code

1. Business Rules

2. Business Rules - Definition
1. Operational guidelines that are the translation of the business strategy,
legislation and policies
2. “a Statement that defines or constrains some aspect of the business. It is
intended to assert business structure, or to control or influence the
behaviour of the business “(Business Rules Group)
3. Any guideline regarding behaviour, actions, execution and procedures that
must be followed during an activity
4. A statement describing a business policy or decision procedure. Some
programming languages run business rules together into very complex
algorithms. In business process analysis each rule is usually stated
independently, in the general format: If A and B, Then C. Workflow tools
and detailed process diagrams both depend on business rules to specify
how decisions are made.
• We generally associate business rules with activities. A decision diamond is
adequate to show what happens if a loan is accepted or rejected, but
dozens or even hundreds of business rules may need to be defined what a
loan should be rejected or accepted

3. Business Rules - Why
Decision rules are often hidden in processes or legacy systems
– this is the case with ACCA
Will allow the Business to own the business rules and to manage
these on an on-going basis
Should have everyone on the same page
Will ultimately allow impact of change to be better identified and
understood
Improves quality of business logic
Should support accelerated Business agility
Should support reduction in time to create, manage and deploy
business logic
Supports testing

4. Business Rules - What
• Constraints
– Internal - policies which will not change regularly (ACCA
rulebook)
– External – laws and regulations (data protection, IFAC
regulations)
• Operational guidance – procedural rules
• Derivations - Breakdown of rules to granular level (singular)
• Ideally business rules should be up-to-date, traceable,
identifiable (and searchable).
Repository contents:
Reference Number, Title, Description

5. Business Rules Framework
(Structural)
Structural Rules
• The terms used by the business in expressing their business rules
and the relationships (facts) among those terms. These comprise
the vocabulary used in rule authoring.
Example: a statement like: An Insurance Policy includes a set of
coverage, is effective at a given date and new to be renewed every six
months, structures the domain knowledge so that a InsurancePolicy
entity will have a effectiveDate, expirationDate and a list of Coverage.
Decision Logic Rules
• The core of what is typically referred to as 'business rules.' When a
business decision needs to be made (e.g. whether to sell a given
insurance policy, whether to accept or reject a claim), the business
rules are the individual statements of business logic that determine
the result of the decision.

6. Decision Logic - Subdivisions
Rule Classification Explanation
Mandatory constraints Rules that reject the attempted business transaction
Grammar to use during rule documentation not implementation.
<term> MUST HAVE <at least, at most, exactly n of> <term>;
<term> MUST BE IN LIST <a,b,c>;
Guidelines Rules that does not reject the transaction; they merely warn about an undesirable
circumstance. Usually translates to warning messages.
<term> SHOULD HAVE <at least, at most, exactly n of> <term>;
<term> SHOULD BE IN LIST <a,b,c>
Action-enablers Rules that tests conditions and upon finding them true, initiate another business
event, message or other activity
IF <condition> THEN action
Computations Rule that creates new information from existing information based on mathematical
computation. Result is a piece of knowledge because it cannot simply be known.
<term> IS COMPUTED AS <formula>
Inferences Rules that create new information from existing information. Result is a piece of
knowledge used as a new fact for the rule engine to consider.
IF <term> <operator> <term> THEN <term> <operator> <term>
This category is subdivided as illustrated in the table below:
Process Flow Rules
The rules that purely direct the movement through a process flow (or workflow,
etc.). It may be helpful to distinguish process flow rules from the business logic
rules that determine the values of the parameters on which the process flow is
directed.

7. Business Rules - How
I suggest using a basic spreadsheet for now - this
can be imported later into our EA tool)
There are some issues that we need to resolve
and I will be working with WL IT on this
• Governance process - TBD
• Who has ownership for the business rules and
who approves? Is this ultimately EA or process
owner? – TBD