Business rules analysis
Variants/Aliases
A related term is constraints analysis.
Description of the technique
Business rules underpin the way an organisation carries out its work. They are
the basis for the decisions that are made, which in turn determine the
information that is distributed and the sequence of tasks.
Business rules apply at a number of different levels, and can originate from
external and internal sources. The major categories of business rule are:
legal and regulatory constraints;
organisational policy constraints;
operational procedures.
Legal and regulatory business rules originate from external sources. As discussed
in Chapter 1, the legal and regulatory issues facing organisations are numerous
and increasing. These constraints impose decisions on all parts of an organisation;
areas affected include accounting and payment procedures, health and safety
requirements and employment rights. Where constraints of this kind exist the
analyst needs to be aware of them, because they have to be complied with. There
is little point in trying to find options for improvement if the current approach is
determined by laws and regulations.
Organisational policy constraints are defined internally, and also impose rules
upon the organisation. These policies may relate to areas such as:
payments, cancellations and refunds;
appeals and complaints;
pricing and discounts.
There is likely to be little gain from challenging policy constraints. They are
usually linked to the MOST for the organisation (Technique 3), and help in the
delivery of its strategy. It may be helpful, however, to verify that a business rule
really does originate from the organisation’s policies. Sometimes rules are
presented as policy when in fact they are only based upon long-standing practice.
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In this case the analyst may be able to uncover unnecessary constraints and the
opportunity for improvement.
Operational procedures are also defined internally, and are the business rules
that are most likely to be open to challenge and amendment when pursuing
organisational improvement. Typical operational procedures include rules
for determining customer discounts or benefits, or for accepting orders or
bookings. These procedures have often developed over time, and may be based
upon personal preferences or individual views rather than business needs.
Detailed analysis can also uncover discrepancies in the way that different
members of staff apply operational procedures. Ultimately, operational
procedures may need to be considered in the light of the business objectives
and strategy in order to determine whether they should be revisited and
improved.
Using business rules analysis
Business rules are important because they govern the work of the organisation.
Hence, it is vital that they are considered during business process modelling
work. They need to be documented so that the analysts can understand the
impact of the rules and whether or not they are open to discussion or
challenge.
Business rules are encountered at many points during business process
improvement. They can constrain the value chain by imposing an overall
sequence on the high-level processes; they can constrain the business processes,
represented in the business process models or swimlane diagrams (Technique 37),
by imposing a need for a particular task to be carried out by a particular actor or
at a set point in the process, or even to be carried out at all; finally, they can
constrain the procedures followed during a task, by imposing rules upon which
decisions are based.
When modelling processes or analysing tasks we can uncover the business rules
by asking about:
the reason for deciding upon a particular course of action;
why the work is carried out in a particular sequence;
the transitions between tasks or the steps within a task (are there any
circumstances under which these transitions would not take place, or there
would be an alternative task invoked)?
For example, we could have a process that contained the following sequence of
tasks:
record ticket booking;
issue tickets.
In this example, the stated sequence of tasks is not open to question but we could
consider why there are two separate tasks, and ask whether they could be carried
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out at the same time. If we investigated what could prevent the issue of the tickets
and cause a task other than ‘issue tickets’ to be invoked, we might find that:
The tickets could be available as an email download, and hence be issued
with the booking confirmation during ‘record ticket booking’.
The customer might not be eligible to attend – possibly on age grounds – and
so the booking would have to be rejected.
Investigating such questions helps to uncover the business rules that apply to the
processes. In the example above, the business rules might be age related, as
suggested – perhaps this is an event with a lower age limit of 18 years. Another
potential eligibility rule could be that when there is a group booking there has
to be at least one person over 21 years old. Alternatively, there could be a
prerequisite – for example, to attend a radio show a person might have to submit
questions in advance in order to gain attendance information. Examining the
transitions between tasks and steps will help to uncover the tacit knowledge
about the business rules.
Business rules and modelling data
Business rules do not just impact upon the business process analysis – they
are also key to understanding how the data in the organisation needs to be
organised. When modelling data, the business rules govern aspects such as
which items of data can be grouped together because they are in one-to-one
correspondence, and the ways in which these data groups are associated with each
other – for example, is there an association between two data groups, and, if so,
what are the rules that govern it? If we consider the ticket example above, in many
ticket booking systems the number of tickets associated with one customer is
limited to a maximum number. In this situation, the business rules could state that
a customer must hold a minimum of one ticket and a maximum of four tickets.
Data modelling, the business rules shown within data models, and techniques
for modelling data are explored in further detail in Chapter 6, ‘Define
requirements’.