Business rules as the basis of an organization’s information systems
| Date | 01 February 2003 |
| Published date | 01 February 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570310456904 |
| Pages | 52-63 |
| Author | Gerhard Steinke,Colleen Nickolette |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Business rules as the basis of an organization's
information systems
Gerhard Steinke
Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington, USA
Colleen Nickolette
Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington, USA
1. Introduction
Generally, a business rule is a statement that
aims to influence or guide behavior and
information in the organization. They, in
essence, define how the actual business is
run. They should be documented and reside
in shared repositories in the organization.
They should be consistently applied in the
business and should not be hard coded into
applications. If an organization knows its
business rules, by applying them to their
data they can then attain information.
Success will come in understanding the rules
of the business and applying them
appropriately to transform bytes of data into
useful information and thus gain knowledge
for making key business decisions.
In 1972, E.F. Codd, father of relational
databases, provided a schema to organize
data into tables that were joined by related
elements. This is a powerful way to
structurally organize data into logical parts.
Data modeling as an art was then born in the
IS world. Along came other significant people
in data modeling, such as Peter Chen, who
built diagramming schemes so we could
visualize the data and relate the data into
information for the business to understand.
Vendors began to build tools for us to
diagram data models even further and
integrate their software with the database
software, which would actually build the
database according to the specifications
outlined in the modeling and diagramming
software. Today, data modeling is
mainstream and accepted as the means to
model data into logical objects and then
physical database implementations. There
are many experts on data models, numerous
tools and many books written about data
modeling.
The data model only tells part of the story
of the business. It tells us what data is
captured and stored in the company, but it
does not tell us why we are storing it and how
the data will be used to add value to the
business. We are on the cusp of a new
revolution in regards to data and
information, the business rule revolution.
The data model function is to organize, but
there must be logic to get the data into the
database as well as to extract the data out of
the database. Business rules bridge data and
business information.
A typical business application will have
three elements: an interface, usually a
graphical user interface (GUI), application
code or logic and a database/data model. The
business rules, although not known by that
term, are sporadically placed in the
application code and logic, as well as the
interface. Programmers do not realize they
are putting them there, but are following the
requirements and specifications of what the
users are requesting to serve a business need
or function. When a business rule changes, it
can become a large effort to find all the
instances of code that contain the rule and
then create a plan to change it. This is a labor
intensive, thus a costly, process adding
frustration and time to the simple
modification of a business process.
Applications that are built are a product of
the stated requirements and the IS
translation of what those requirements really
mean. There are often gaps in this approach
to software development. The rules of the
business are probably relatively static, but
can be interpreted differently. Often in
requirements gathering the rules of the
business are not mentioned, they are
assumed. A simple misinterpretation of a
business rule can create havoc in an
enterprise.
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[52]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
103/1 [2003] 52-63
#MCB UP Limited
[ISSN 0263-5577]
[DOI 10.1108/02635570310456904]
Keywords
Business policy,
Information systems, Rules
Abstract
Business rules are statements
that aim to influence or guide
behavior and information in the
organization. They are the
business policies, the business
practices, and business
definitions that should be well
known and treated as a valuable
asset to the organization. They are
in essence how the actual
business is run. Yet so often these
business rules are implicit,
assumed in the development of
information systems in an
organization. They have been
buried in code, lived in the
business experts' heads and
sporadically been documented in
system manuals. In this paper we
examine the value of business
rules, compare the thinking of
business rule experts and provide
guidelines on how to derive and
store an organization's business
rules.
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