Recognizing that business rules!

Dear Reader,

Business Rules, like Data Warehousing, both have the potential to dramatically reverse the downward spiral in the credibility and coherence of many IT organizations. Both initiatives focus on giving the business what it wants; Data Warehousing from mainly a strategic decision-making perspective and Business Rules from mainly an operational-support and tactical-orientation perspective.

To understand the importance of the role of Business Rules in business is to recognize a done deal, to actively go about leveraging Business Rules as the key component in process development, application development and application evolution is really the thing that will separate the smart people from the sceptics.

One of the problems of Business Rules, like Data Warehousing as well, is that they are both seemingly intuitive - the sort of thing that one could do just by imagining oneself what needs to be done. Now, don't let me put you off, and I would say that there is an element of truth in the idea that, at a certain level of abstraction, both the Data Warehousing and Business Rules concepts are very straightforward. However, and this is the crux of the matter, there are a number of seemingly small and insignificant project decisions to be made where the right decisions (based on experience) are not always the most obvious or intuitive choices, especially when we base our decisions on knowledge of other IT project methods, and, which in turn could lead to decisions that result in the collapse of your BR or DW project and the failure of yet another IT project.

So, if you think that Business Rules might be just the thing for your business then read this book. In it you will find a wealth of knowledge and experience. It leads the reader from a good description of real reasons for using the Business Rules approach, Business Rules concepts, through to the process of identifying, defining and capturing Business Rules, and describes, in great detail, an iterative project approach to the active and evolutionary management of Business Rules in business. The book is well structured, is easy to read - for such a detailed book - and, focuses on important issues, options and decisions involved in Business Rules.

As a long term advocate of the Business Rules approach I could not rate this book more highly.

Best regards,

Martyn R Jones
Iniciativa Org, SL

Other Reviews

• A classic on using business rules to build information systems
• Good coverage of topic
• Blueprint for Success
• Recognizing that business rules!