Excerpted with permission from
Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules, by Ronald G. Ross with Gladys S. W. Lam, an IIBA
® Sponsored Handbook, Business Rule Solutions, LLC, October 2011, 304 pp,
http://www.brsolutions.com/bbsOver the past decade we have developed a series of well-structured
pattern questions for harvesting business rules. Each pattern question focuses on a particular topical concern and some particular construct (pattern) found frequently in models of a given kind.
These pattern questions are designed to assist professionals in learning how to ask the right kinds of questions in the right ways to capture business rules. They also prove quite useful in validating and refining various kinds of models, including data models.
Basic business rules can be captured from many sources using the general pattern questions discussed below. These pattern questions focus directly on the question words what, how, where, who, when, and why, plus exceptions. Other pattern questions focus selectively and specifically on business process models, concept model (also sometimes called fact model), etc.
General Pattern Question for ‘What’
General Pattern Question for ‘How’
General Pattern Question for ‘Where’
General Pattern Question for ‘Who’
General Pattern Question for ‘When’
General Pattern Question for ‘Why’
General Pattern Question for Exceptions
Aside: ‘Exceptions’ to business rules simply imply more business rules.
Summary
Business rules offer a powerful tool for data professionals, business analysts, and others to improve communication with business leads (and IT) and to come to grips with real-life complexity. Pattern questions are designed to assist professionals in learning how to ask the right kinds of questions in the right ways to capture business rules. The pattern questions also prove quite useful in validating and refining various kinds of models, including data models.
