Business Rules Catalog

Definition

Business Rules Catalog

the business (re)engineering requirements work product that documents the business rules of the customer organization’s current business enterprise

Objectives

The typical objectives of a business rules catalog are to:

• Provide a single location for the specification, storage, and maintenance of the business rules.

Benefits

The typical benefits of a business rules catalog are:

• It provides an organizational structure for the business rules that makes it easier for stakeholders to locate and understand them.
• It provides a basis for the development of a consensus between the business domain experts and the stakeholders that must use the business rules (e.g., requirements engineers and testers).

Contents

The typical contents of a business rules catalog are:

• Overview of Business Rules:
  • Importance of Business Rules
  • Types of Business Rules
  • Sources of Business Rules
  • Responsibilities for Business Rules
• Business Rules:
  • Calculation Rules
  • Logical Assertions:
    • Logical Preconditions
    • Logical Postconditions (Inferences)
    • Logical Invariants
  • Physical Facts
  • Triggering Events
• Conclusion
• Appendices:
  • Process for Creating and Maintaining Business Rules
  • Major Issues
  • TBDs
  • Assumptions

Stakeholders

The typical stakeholders of a business rules catalog are:

• Producers:
  • Business Strategy Team
• Evaluators:
  • Strategy Inspection Team
  • Customer Organization, which inspects the content for correctness
• Approvers:
  • Technical Leader
  • Project Manager
  • Customer Representative
• Maintainers:
  • Business Strategy Team
• Users:
  • Customer Organization, which uses it to understand and communicate the business rules of their business.
  • Requirements Team, which uses it as an input to application vision statements and system requirements specifications.

Phases

A business rules catalog is typically produced during the following phases:

• Business Strategy: Completed
• Business Optimization: Maintained
• Initiation: Not Applicable
• Construction: Not Applicable
• Delivery: Not Applicable
• Usage: Not Applicable
• Retirement: Not Applicable

Preconditions

A business rules catalog typically can be started if the following preconditions hold:

• The business strategy phase is started.
• The business strategy team has been staffed and trained in business rules catalog development.
• The customer analysis has been started.
• The market analysis has been started.
• The technology analysis has been started.
• The user analysis has been started.

Inputs

The typical inputs to a business rules catalog include:

• Work Products:
  • Customer Analysis
  • Market Analysis
  • Technology Analysis
  • User Analysis
  • Domain Model Document
  • Business process model
  • Business policies, standards, and procedures
  • Governmental regulations
• Stakeholders:
  • Customer Representatives
  • Business Domain Experts
  • Business engineering Domain Experts
  • Competitor Domain Experts
  • Marketing Domain Experts
  • Marketplace Domain Experts
  • Partner Domain Experts

Guidelines

• Business rule catelogues may be in the form of databases, spreadsheets, or documents.
• Business catelogues are living work products that are developed incrementally and iteratively in parallel with other work products.
• This work product should typically produced during the business strategy phase of a business reengineering project However, it may also be either created or updated during the initiation phase of an application development project.
• Focus on the business issues, rather than the technical issues.

Conventions

The business rules catalog is typically constrained by the following conventions:

• Content and Format Standard
• MS Word Template
• XML DTD
• Inspection Checklist

Examples

• Example Business Rules Catalog