Angie Perris is attending the Business Rules Forum in Orlando, FL this week and is blogging about the sessions she is attending. Here is her update from Day 3.
Day 3 - Tuesday October 28, 2008
Ronald Ross gave a keynote "From Here to Agility" today. He began by reminding the audience that BPM (Business Process Management) continues to be very important when businesses want to re-engineer processes for more efficiency and value, but that it is really decisioning that gives each business their competitive edge. When he discussed decisioning he is really talking about a superset of business rules - those rules that are really strategic and rules that need to change often.
This comment seemed to be echoed by many presentations during the day. Most of the presenters when discussing business rules were referring how companies make decisions, the process they use to decide, the criteria used and how fast they can make decisions really gives the company the most edge. Processes are more static. As we teach about essential processes (what are the essential activities that need to be performed irrespective of how these activities will be enabled by any technology): the essential steps of a process will not change - how we implement them will change. He takes that even further to say that even processes that are implemented do not change that often except for the decisions we make during those processes. Those decisions are much more dynamic and change frequently as the landscape changes based on the economy, competitors, new customers, and the types of products and services sold. What he and many in the conference echoed is that anything that changes often like decisions need to be pulled out of the process into a rule. Every body knows in large businesses that it often takes IT several months to incorporate changes into a system. With today's rules-based engines (RBEs) a business person or any qualified product specialist like the business analyst can author, test, and implement a decision in a few days instead of months. This allows companies to be more agile.
My takeaway was that analysts need to consider with each requirement they capture if the content will change often over time. If it may, then it probably needs to be pulled out into a rule repository, segregated from the process model or even the data model and later put into a Rules engine (if it will be automated) where it can be managed and changed much faster.
Angie Perris is attending the Business Rules Forum in Orlando, FL this week and is blogging about the sessions she is attending. Here is her update from Day 2.
Day 2 - Pre Conference Workshop
I got a chance to meet Scott Ambler, another thought leader who spoke about agile development. He is a prolific writer and practice leader of iterative and agile development. His teaching technique is to make controversial statements to incite you to think. It worked on me. I got worked up about a couple of his comments. I was motivated to speak up several times about the role of a BA and how it aligns well with the principles he discussed. I am still not sure whether he appreciates the BA role.
He is quite vocal that development does not need business analysts as a bottle neck between the developer and the business stakeholders. He maintains a go-between between adults is not necessary and can deter efficient and effective development. Believe it or not, most points that Mr. Ambler made are again the same principles we teach our business analysts. He reinforced the fact that to be successful in agile you need to know multiple techniques, be skilled to wear multiple hats, model and document only what is necessary and useful, and plan before you start working. He just never admitted that he knew BAs follow these same principles. Luckily the principles of agile development are not really new and have tested long before the "agile" name was coined. BAs can be a great asset to an agile project. I attended other sessions but these two pre-conference presentations were highlights for me and kept me thinking what a great time it is to be a business analyst! BAs rule at the conference!
Angie Perris is attending the Business Rules Forum in Orlando, FL this week and is blogging about the sessions she is attending. Here is her update from Day 1.
Day 1 - Pre Conference workshop - Sunday 10/26/08
I was thrilled to attend a Business Rules seminar by Ronald Ross who is often called the "father of business rules". I brought along his book Principles of the Business Rule Approach and he graciously signed it for me. Mr. Ross made a great case why we need to document and manage business rules independently of processes and program logic. He reminded us that rules have nothing to do with hardware or software technology and are only concerned with describing criteria for business decisions, business terminology and business facts.
The best question a BA can ask the business stakeholder is why do we have this rule and how does it support the business strategy and objectives? The other main thing is to ensure that everyone is using the same definitions for business terms. He calls these rules facts. He made the distinction that business rules should be specified by business people, not IT. He showed us a fact model which looked surprisingly similar to an ERD. But not the same he declared. He also clarified the difference between rules (which represent decisions and are not procedural) and processes (they transform and are procedural). He was adamant that rules should not be included in processes. In documenting process workflows Mr. Ross never includes any diamond symbols. Diamonds represent decisions which need to be documented as business rule statements. He stressed rule independence from program logic is needed so that the business can manage their rules directly without getting IT involved and the business maintains control and establishes traceability. The great news is that Mr. Ross's seminar was aligned with the principles we teach to our business analysts.
Greetings from Moscow! Even though we don't yet have an IIBA chapter here, business analysis is strong. I am teaching a class here and the students are facing the same issues and challenges as business analysts everywhere. I am teaching my class in English (my only language) which is the second or third language of the students in the class. They are bridging the language gap as well as the IT to business gap asking great quesions about data requirements, business rules and how to manage stakeholders from different departments with different opinons! The BAs in my class all have an IT background and many are also responsible for doing the system design and development. A few have access to testers (QA) but most are also responsible for that work. It is a great experience to talk with BAs from another country and find out that we share our passion and energy for business analysis.
