Business Rule Engineering

Basic Principle and Practices

Alain Neyroud ILOG Technical Sales Americas neyroud@ilog.com

Agenda
Basic Concepts

Analysis & Design Consideration Implementing

The Rule Model
Verification and Validation Governance

Q&A

Relationship between Rules and Policies

Business Rules implement Business Policies
To be understood in a similar way as

Regulations implement Laws

Policy Rule Avoid paying Ask for an audit if one of the treatment includes an emergency for non room treatment or an ambulance transfer done on a day after the related accident. treatments

Business Rules: A Mean to an End

Business Rules Engineering is about using a modeling abstraction and a set of supporting tools to facilitate making changes to some of the logic of an application/service while it is in production
Accelerate Change Management Policy Policy Policy
Change Change Change

Business Rules
Change
Change Change Change

Deploy

Deploy

Deploy

Deploy

In-production Application
Deploy Deploy

Requirement

Requirement

Software Development
Platform upgrade Functional enhancements

Different Types of Changes

FAST Engineering

Operation SLOW

UNPREDICTABLE

PREDICTABLE

Software Maintenance vs Rule Maintenance

Operational Changes
Business Policy Update

IT Dev / QA Business

Analyst

Support

Functional Enhancements

Business Policy Update

Regulatory Changes
requirement development production

Agenda
Basic Concepts

Analysis & Design Consideration Implementing

The Rule Model
Verification and Validation Governance

Q&A

Traditional Software Lifecycle

Business Analyst IT Dev / QA Support

Inception

Elaboration

Construction

Transition

Production

I1

E1

E2

C1

C2

C3

T1

Application Maintenance

Build-Time

Run-Time

BRMS Software Lifecycle

Inception

Elaboration

Construction

Transition

Production

I1

E1

E1

C1

C1

C1

T1

Policy Change Management

Build-Time

Change-Time

Business Rule Maintenance Lifecycle

Making the change process Easy, Safe and Predictable
Analyze

Deploy

Author

Validate

Designing the Rule Application/Service

Many Dimensions
Functional Integration
Usability Verification/Validation Deployment

Governance

Scope of change (1/2)

A system can only support capabilities that have been specified Hence the nature and scope of the changes the application will support must be established It is not about capturing all the rules upfront It is about capturing a representative set and understanding how they will likely change in the future
Inception Elaboration Construction
Transition

Production

I1

E1

E1

C1

C1

C1

T1

Policy Change Management

Build-Time

Change-Time

Scope of Change (2/2)

Decompose Functionally Define the Governance Process

Evaluate Variability in Time and Space

Define the Verification & Validation Process

Define a Rule Model

Agenda
Basic Concepts

Analysis & Design Consideration Implementing

The Rule Model
Verification and Validation Governance

Q&A

Implementing the Application

Rule Framework Set of software artifacts to support the capture, validation and deployment of the rules as well as the associated governance process Rule Capture and Implementation The initial set of Policy Management Cycles necessary to implement the minimum set of rule for the application to be operational
Inception Elaboration Construction
Transition

Production

Rules Capture and Implementation

Rule Framework

I1

E1

E1

C1

C1

C1

T1

Policy Change Management

Build-Time

Change-Time

Agenda
Basic Concepts

Analysis & Design Consideration Implementing

The Rule Model
Verification and Validation Governance

Q&A

Implementing the Framework: The Rule Model

Business Object Model and Vocabulary

Implementing the Framework: The Rule Model

Business Object Model and Vocabulary Rule Taxonomy and Templates

Implementing the Framework: The Rule Model

Business Object Model and Vocabulary Rule Taxonomy and Templates

Rule Organization

Implementing the Framework: The Rule Model

Business Object Model and Vocabulary Rule Taxonomy and Templates

Rule Organization
Rule Orchestration

Implementing the framework: The Rule Model

Business Object Model and Vocabulary Rule Taxonomy and Templates

Rule Repository

Rule Organization
Validation

Rule Orchestration

Rule Deployment

Agenda
Basic Concepts

Analysis & Design Consideration Implementing

The Rule Model
Verification and Validation Governance

Q&A

Implementing the Framework: Verification And Validation

What need to be verified
Business Objective -> simulation, Champion Challenger, Delta Testing Change use cases -> unit testing Service Integrity -> regression testing

How
Definition of the test cases

Using what data

Ad-hoc
Historical

Operational

Who
Business User Analyst QA

Implementing the Framework: Verification And Validation Static Analysis

Implementing the Framework: Verification And Validation Static Analysis

Unit & Regression Testing

Implementing the Framework: Verification And Validation Static Analysis

Unit & Regression Testing Simulation

Implementing the Framework: Verification And Validation Champion Challenger & Delta Testing
New Ruleset

Test Harness

Test Case
Input

Rule Engine

New Output

Compare

Change Definition

Rule Engine

Current Output

Current Ruleset

Test Outcomes

Agenda
Basic Concepts

Analysis & Design Consideration Implementing

The Rule Model
Verification and Validation Governance

Q&A

Rule Governance
Business
what is the impact?
when will it take effect?

Application Support
monitoring will I break something?

update

how do I undo a change?

Analyst Ensure efficient maintenance of the rule application through an optimal IT Dev collaboration between Business, IT and other stake holding groups
enhance
test who can change what?

author

what do I need to change?

what has changed?

who changed what?

IT QA

Defining Rule Governance

Notes: Define a set of processes to:

Manage expectations for policy change

Control policy change analysis and implementation

Demonstrate the use and performance of the other processes

Outcome
Clear map of the stakeholders roles and responsibilities
How IT and Business collaborate Separation of duties Separation of the roles from the individuals

Awareness of the new policy change capabilities and limits

Prepare the company for organizational change and agility

BRMS that is adapted to the company environment

No one tool or one process fits all

Well-defined orchestration of the rule life cycle

Consistent authoring, testing, deployment for rules

Challenges
Staffing of the various roles
Not perceived as priority during initial development
Multi-tasking and business urgencies during project ramp-up

Include explicit staffing task in project plan

Internal politics
Fight over control, lack of mutual trust

Educate on respective roles, responsibilities XP techniques: war room, peer programming Lack of experience in BRMS implementation

Engage experienced BRMS specialists

Reduce the challenge by incremental implementation

Identify Stakeholders

Business

Application Support

BRMS
IT Dev Analyst

IT QA

Formalize Business Policy Change Templates

Inventory of probable ways in which the policies:
may or will change with which frequency

Analysis Results In:

Template for change submission

A process map to implement the change Accurate time and effort estimate for the change
Rule templates Precise test plan and set of test cases

Define Rule Life Cycle

Define user roles

Define rule statuses

Keep it simple Develop appropriate tools (ILOG Jruless queries)

Define Rule Set Access Control

Map rule set responsibilities
Assign rule set owner

Assign users responsible for rule review and authoring

Rule Set Name Department Owner Policy Manager Rule Reviewer Rule Author

Customer Loyalty
Risk Assessment

Marketing
Risk

Bob Reynolds
Bob B.

John Smith
Bob B.

Ralph Jones
Jack C.

Develop rule set CRUD matrix

Departments Rule Set Customer Loyalty Customer Eligibility Pricing Marketing CRUD x R Risk x CRU x Sale x x CRU

Plan Deployment
Plan deployment procedures
` RES RTS

Test

` Rule Studio
Development Team

Staging
CVS
Development Servers

Build Server

Production

Plan production monitoring

Audit trails
RES RES
Test Platform

Performances
RES

RES
Staging Platform Production Platform

RTS, RES, RSM Consoles

Rule Writers

RES Console
Administrator

Q&A

Questions and Answers

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Whats Next?
Resources
www.ilog.com/brms BRMS Resource Center -- explore, learn, try

blogs.ilog.com Latest on all ILOG products, technology, and methodology

www.agileitarchitecture.com Participate in ABRD and share ideas

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