Business Rules Methodology

A Business Rules Methodology is a development methodology that specifies the processes and practices for defining, managing, and executing business rules.

• Context:
  • It can (typically) involve the identification, documentation, implementation, and maintenance of business rules to ensure that they are consistently applied across all relevant business processes.
  • It can (typically) aim to improve business process efficiency, ensure compliance with regulations, enhance decision-making quality, and enable business agility.
  • It can (typically) include stakeholder engagement, business rule harvesting, rule analysis and modeling, rule validation, and rule management.
  • It can (often) rely on Business Rules Management System (BRMS) to automate the execution and monitoring of business rules.
  • It can (often) be guided by best practices and standards such as the Business Rules Approach and methodologies like Decision Model and Notation (DMN).
  • It can (often) require interdisciplinary collaboration among business analysts, IT professionals, legal experts, and other stakeholders.
  • It can benefit from continuous improvement practices to adapt to changing business needs and regulatory requirements.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • One a bank to manage credit risk assessment rules.
  • One at a retail company to define and enforce pricing and discount rules across its sales channels.
  • One at a healthcare provider to standardize patient care protocols and compliance with healthcare regulations.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • A Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Methodology, which focuses on the development of software applications rather than the management of business rules.
  • A Project Management Methodology, which is concerned with the planning, execution, and closing of projects, and not specifically with defining and applying business rules.
• See: Business Rules Management System, Decision Model and Notation, Business Process Modeling, Rules-as-Code, Formal Specification, Semantics of Business Vocabulary And Business Rules (SBVR) Standard.

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References

2024

• (Wikipedia, 2024) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_rules_approach Retrieved:2024-3-1.
  • Business rules are abstractions of the policies and practices of a business organization. In computer software development, the business rules approach is a development methodology where rules are in a form that is used by, but does not have to be embedded in, business process management systems.

    The business rules approach formalizes an enterprise's critical business rules in a language that managers and technologists understand. Business rules create an unambiguous statement of what a business does with information to decide a proposition. The formal specification becomes information for process and rules engines to run.