Business Rule Revolution: Running Business the Right Way

Authors represent the healthcare industry, financial services experience, state and federal government experience, and senior practitioners spanning many industries.

This book accomplishes the following: 1) It is for managers and decision-makers who make things happen in their organization. 2) It addresses BRs as a leverage for agility, compliance, and corporate intelligence, as a key mechanism for engineering the business itself. 3) It is not meant to be read cover-to-cover. Business people will focus on section 2. Technical people will focus on section 3. 4) Together, the sections provide a step-by-step management approach that crosses business and IT barriers. 5) Real case studies are written by real people in well-respected corporations, government agencies, consultancies, and software vendors. 6) Leading technology is highlighted. 7) Present the possibilities that BR Approach can achieve for both business and IT

Taking care of business: "Without a doubt, every contributor to this book is a hero in their own right... None are afraid to share both good and bad so that readers can grow from their experiences." Barbara von Halle

"The requirement will be for enterprise-wide, integrated implementations for immediate delivery." John Zachman

"Business specifications are no longer requirements that support the development of IT design.. they are the business configuration that is expected to be loaded into the IT solution." Neal McWhorter

"The implementation of this tool [at Oregon Public Employee Retirement Systems] allowed us to consolidate business rule responsibilities from IT (QA) systems staff to the primary business users after appropriate training." Larry Ward and Jordan Masango

"What proved most effective, then, was not a top-down, process-to-rules approach, but one that iterated between both perspectives." Art Moore and Michael Beck

"The delivery of the Rule Wizard [at Aetna] not only resulted in a huge advancement in enabling the rule authors to write rules, but the rule authors could now easily address rule quality and integrity, all without much technical support." John Semmel

Take care of technology: "Rule architecture should be business-friendly...it should help the business better understand, manage, maintain and update decision logic." Gene Weng

"The core of a business is its business rules, which need to be protected from deliberate or accidental misuse. A well-defined business rules methodology, focused on business goals and objectives, addresses most of the concerns." May Abraham

"While the promise of BRMS is alluring, realizing the benefits requires more than finding rules and integrating a business rule engine." Brian Stucky

"As an ASP, Equifax manages the core environment, development and maintenance of customer systems, with business rule maintenance performed by the customers themselves." Linda Nieporent

"The greatest ROI becomes possible when automating and improving operational decisions across the enterprise." James Taylor

Bring the two sides together: "So we believe that agility is the single most important quality for a competitive organization. Not technological agility, a necessary but insufficient condition, but business agility." Larry Goldberg

Partial excerpt from chapter 1: What is the Business Rule Revolution?

The Business Rule Revolution is happening everywhere, even if it seems invisible. In fact, the business rules that are unseen or unknown are precisely the ones that can do the most damage. Invisible rules lurk behind a lack of proper business rule management--creating a precarious business climate for these times.

Consider the growing and painful awareness of questionable accounting practices by some corporate executives in some major organizations. What is at play here? Business rules are at play--good or bad, known or unknown. In these cases, rules were broken or secret. Some were improper rules applied to achieve improper objectives. Think of the Business Rule Revolution as appropriate parties knowing what the rules are, applying the rules in all the right places, and the organization therefore taking full responsibility for its rules and its integrity.

In a nutshell, the Business Rule Revolution represents an emerging undeniable need for the right people to know what a business's rules are, to be able to change those rules on demand according to changing objectives, to be accountable for those rules, and to predict as closely as possible the impact of rule changes on the business, its customers, its partners, its competition, and its regulators.

This means that the Business Rule Revolution reflects a pent-up need for business people to play a more prominent role in safely stewarding the business's rules from their inception to execution, with probable automation. Otherwise, the business is driving in the dark, off-road without headlights--an environment where serious accidents can happen. An organization aiming to better manage its important business rules needs a goal, a roadmap, and a plan for action. This is where KPI's Rule Maturity Model (KPI RMM(tm) or RMM) fits.

This chapter explains the KPI Rule Maturity Model as the essential roadmap by which organizations chart their course in the Business Rule Revolution.

This chapter covers:
* What exactly are business rules?
* What is the Business Rules Approach?
* Putting the business first
* What is the Rule Maturity Model?
* What the Rule Maturity Model is not
* How the Rule Maturity Model is used today
* Today's leaders: RMM levels 1, 2
* Tomorrow's leaders: RMM levels 3, 4, 5
* The Rule Maturity Model and the changing relationship between business and IT
* What happens next-technology predictions in the Rule Maturity Model
* Summary and future vision