1. Business Rules for
Requirements and Processes:
Why Business Analysts
Should Care – A Lot!
IIBA UK – 18 June, 2012
by Ronald G. Ross
Co-Founder & Principal, Business Rule Solutions, LLC
BRSolutions.com
Executive Editor, Business Rules Journal
BRCommunity.com
© Business Rule Solutions, LLC 1

2. About 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.
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
2

3. Is this a business rule?
Provide a feature to handle
electronic funds transfer.
3

4. requirement
Provide a feature to handle
electronic funds transfer.
business rule
Every employee expense
reimbursement must be processed
through electronic funds transfer.
4

5. Is this a business rule?
Customer provides account id.
System displays account.
5

6. use case statements
Customer provides account id.
System displays account.
business rule
A customer must have a valid account.
6

7. Is this a business rule?
If the overdrawn flag is set to ‘yes’,
reject transaction.
7

8. system if/then statement
If the overdrawn flag is set to ‘yes’,
reject transaction.
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.
8

9. definition
business rule: criterion used in
business operations to …
• guide behavior
• shape judgments
• make decisions
9

10. when can a business rule be violated?
business rule
A customer must be assigned to an agent
if the customer has placed an order.
10

11. where do business rules come from?
“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
11

12. 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").
 laws
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
 acts
Agreement and Publisher is willing to appoint Apple as its agent or commissionaire, as the case may be, under such conditions.
 agree as follows:
In consideration of mutual promises, Apple and Publisher (each a "Party" and collectively, "Parties") hereby statutes
1. Definitions. The following terms shall have the following meanings for purposes of this Agreement:  regulations
(a) "Artwork" means book covers, photos, drawings, and illustrations associated with Publisher Content, contracts
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
 agreements
Artwork provided to Apple shall have been cleared for Apple's use for the purposes of performing its functions under this
Agreement.  business deals
(b) "Commissionaire" means that a non-risk bearing agent acts in its own name but on the account of a principal.
 business policies
 licenses
 certifications
3. Publisher Obligations.
 warranties
(a) Publisher acknowledges that the breadth of eBook offerings on the Online Store is of the essence of the Agreement and the
 etc.
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.
where business rules come from
12

13. what do business rules do for
business processes?
never embed diamonds
Claimant how many “if’s”?!
 these diamonds always
makes claim yes represent business rules
Verify Basic if policy if policy
Take Claim Claim number … which are best
Information number
Information missing no invalid yes
defined independently
no
 embedding diamonds
if policy
if valid claim expired yes will hopelessly
no complicate your model
Adjudicate if claim
Claim denied If claimant
name invalid
yes
if fraud suspected no
if claim accepted If no
location
given yes
many operational no
business decisions
If …
aren’t binary!
13

14. best practice for business process models …
no embedded evaluation criteria in conditional flows
… just transforms and hand-offs!
Verify Basic business rule …
Claim
Information A claim may be considered valid
only if it has all the following:
 an active policy
if valid claim
 a claimant
 an incident
Adjudicate
Claim This conditional flow probably involves
many business rules!
14

15. what kinds of business rules are there?
decision rules behavioral rules
15

16. definitional rules behavioral rules
example … example …
A customer is always considered a A gold customer must be allowed
gold customer if the customer places access to the warehouse.
more than 12 orders during a
calendar year.
this rule might be ill-conceived, this rule can be violated!
misunderstood, or misapplied …
… but it cannot be directly
violated.
violating business rules
16

17. 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

18. sample
enforcement description
levels
strictly enforced violations disallowed in all cases – achieving some
new state successfully always prevented
override by pre- the behavioral rule is enforced, but an actor with
authorized actor proper before-the-fact authorization may override it
override with the behavioral rule may be overridden simply by
explanation providing an explanation
guideline suggested, but not enforced
enforcement level
18

19. what message is
appropriate when
a violation
occurs?
violation message
19

20. • The total number of
hours worked by an
business employee during a 24-
rule hour period must not
exceed 18 consecutive
hours.
violation • Notify Manager
action
violation response
20

21. what do business rules do for requirements?
ability to provide ability to identify
routing for trucks downtown areas
ability to provide
ability to identify the
special routing for
type of material a truck
trucks carrying
?
carries
hazardous materials
21

22. ability to provide ability to identify
routing for trucks downtown areas
ability to provide
ability to identify the
special routing for
type of material a truck
trucks carrying
carries A truck carrying hazardous materials
hazardous
material must not
be routed through
a downtown
street.
business rules establish motivation for functional requirements
22

23. how about the software today ...
development life cycle?  no separation of
business logic from
functionality functional
requirements
 complex
testing implementation
cycle driven by IT
implementation
design &
business workers prototyping
“requirements” IT
23

24. 1. separation of
business rules from functionality
delivered
functional
requirements
business rules
repository
business
rules
business workers
IT
functional
requirements
& use cases
24

25. 2. business rules
pushed out toward functionality
delivered
business workers
general
rulebook
system
(GRBS)
business
rules
business workers
IT
functional
requirements
& use cases
25

26. 3. liberation of
software
business rules release
from the software cycle
release cycle
general
rulebook
system
(GRBS)
business
rule
business workers life cycle
IT
26

27. 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
27

28. Building Business Solutions Business Rule Concepts
Business Analysis with Business Rules Getting to the Point of Knowledge
An IIBA ® Sponsored Handbook
http://www.brsolutions.com/publications
28

29. 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!
29

30. Thank You!
Ronald G. Ross
Business Rule Solutions, LLC
rross@BRSolutions.com
Q &
Follow Me:
Twitter: @Ronald_G_Ross
Blog: www.RonRoss.info
A
30