Value of Business Rules - What Does it Mean to Your Organization?

In the series so far, we have seen the basic principles of business rules, roles and responsibilities of a Business Analyst (BA) and Business Rules Analyst. In this article we shall focus on the rationale of this study. What value do business rules bring to your organization? Why are organizations spending time, resources and money in understanding and implementing this ideology? How far does one go and where does one stop? Let us find out answers for these questions that bother an analyst through out the project life cycle.

Business rules are an inherent part of any process. Starting from the requirement gathering phase through testing and deployment, business rules govern the validity of the product. Business rules play a vital role throughout the software development life cycle. They act as decision points which govern and define the output of a project. In today’s world, where the impact of business rules on projects is tremendous, it is very important for an organization to identify where they belong with respect to the industry standards not only to keep up to the competition but also to produce better products and aid in successful implementation of projects. Business rules are a reflection of businesses. Or, even more correctly, the business will turn out to be a reflection of the business rules that are established.

One of the key questions to answer is how far one should go and this is directly related to the project and organizational needs. What is the extent of scoping, identifying, formulating, classifying and storing business rules desired? There are good models to help you understand and determine where your team/organization belongs such as KPI’s RMM model which helps you identify the level of business rules governance based on business logic and technical implementation. The most important factor that governs how far to go is the business vision. Is the need to document rules to an extent that aids in successful execution of a specific project or formulation of rules to address needs across the organization?

Business Rules may address the governance of a specific project. Certain business rules may be true for multiple projects and hence may be shared. There may be global business rules that hold true at an organization level. This bandwidth is one of the factors that define the level an organization has to reach in its business rules governance.

Business rules are embedded in people’s minds. They could be documented in an informal fashion or could exist in a central repository. This repository could be project specific or a global repository for an organization. This repository, for automated rules, could be a business rules engine which aids in traceability with respect to business value.

Here are some questions, the answers to which provide answers for the questions how far to go and where to stop are:

Answers to all the above questions help an analyst identify their current level of business rules governance vs. the level that helps them meet their business vision successfully and efficiently. In today’s world, where it is crucial that IT functions as a business within a business for the success of an organization, understanding where you stand with respect to the goal can play a vital role in the efficient use of time, resources and money!

Anu Sripada is a business analyst at a major financial firm. In her professional tenure, she has played myriad roles including those of a developer, data modeler and analyst, in addition to being a speaker and an author. She has evolved from a conventional business analyst into a business rules analyst. In her series of articles, she writes about the roles and responsibilities that have been a part of her experience.