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The intent of the Capstone Newsletter is to keep you informed of industry trends that can shape how you do business. You will also find information on upcoming technology events as well as interesting and timely technology articles.
We hope you find the information in this newsletter relevant. Your feedback on these or potential future topics is welcome at feedback@capstonec.com.
This Capstone fall newsletter provides a high-level summary of using
business rules with the Rational Unified Process (RUP). Business rules
contiue to get more and more exposure due to a variety of reasons:
- Enterprise class business rules engines(BRE) becoming more robust
- Business users requiring more direct control over the business rules
- No standard modeling tools
- Business users maintaining business rules repositories
- Business rules artifacts coming out of business process (re) engineering (BPE) efforts
- As service oriented architectures (SOA)and business process execution languages (BPEL) mature the needs for
business rules capture and dissemination is more demanding
The definition of an information technology business rule is defined well
by the Business Rules Group(businessrulesgroup.org):
"From the information system perspective, a business rule is a statement
that defines or constrains some aspect of the business. It is intended to
assert business structure, or to control or influence the behavior of the
business "
This high-level description is a start to capturing the
concept of a business rule but leaves a lot of room for different
interpretations. There are different ways to categorize business rules
to assist in integrating business rules into the RUP. This newsletter
gives information about the business rules impact to the RUP, namely:
- Links to key resources for definitions
and tools (current fall newsletter)
- Business rules impact to the RUP phases
(current fall newsletter)
- Business rules impact to RUP disciplines
(next Capstone newsletter)
Key Web Resources:
Before exploring the impacts of business rules to the
RUP, below is a small list of some key web sites for additional
information about business rules and the RUP.
Business Rules Links:
RUP Links:
Inception
Inception captures the project initiation artifacts. As
part of requirements analysis some business rules may be captured and
stored in the business rules repository (BRR). Depending on the
maturity of the process of the BRR, this might just be in a spreadsheet
or word processing document. There are much more robust tool suites
available including IBM’s RequistePro. The business rules
should not be a major focus point during inception.
Elaboration
The business rules capture and dissemination can play a
major part in the elaboration phase. The business rules impact the
requirements and the system architecture. The business users start to
familiarize and take ownership of the business rules during
elaboration. If business rules are risky (e.g., first project that is
implementing a BRE) Capstone would recommend that the business rules be
part of the executable architecture. The executable architecture is
much more than a prototype. It is the basic core of system that will be
continued to build upon throughout the project. The business needs to
understand where business rules fit in and the impact to their
“to-be” processes.
Construction
As the executable architecture continues to move
forward, business rules implementation and change control will be areas
of focus. The implementation should reflect architecturally correct
placement of business rules. As the business rules begin to change due
to business or other conditions, it is important to measure the
business rules flexibility and controllability. This provides process
indicators for the program management team to monitor.
Transition
The business rules change control will dominate the
transitional impact on a project. The controlled delivery of business
rules will determine the business’ view of success. If the
business rules change control is stiff and unyielding, the business
might believe they are no better off than with a system without
business rules. If no business rule change control is enforced, the
system can become very unstable. Therefore the transitional phase is
key for businesses and business rules success.
Next month’s newsletter will review each RUP
discipline for business rules impact. Capstone Consulting provides key
services around building solid enterprise solutions. If you are
considering using business rules or implementing a solution using
business rules please contact us at info@capstonec.com
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