Posted by Denham on June 24, 2002 at 12:53:58:

In Reply to: Business Rules: Thought for the day posted by Martyn Richard Jones on June 24, 2002 at 10:12:13:

Martyn,

Business rules can be found along a continuum from very specific to quite abstract, from 'hard', i.e. explicit and rigid to 'fuzzy' and context dependent or 'soft'. Let me give some examples:

Specific and crisp
Place a new order, within 2 hours by e-mail, when the number of parts gets below 350 in bin B.

Specific and fuzzy
Place the next order at the end of the week the parts go below about 400.

Abstract
When our competitors change their marketing and sales strategies, we need to match them.

Soft
If the 2nd pump vibrates too much, close down the inlet and wait until the system stablizes.

The KM issues to watch with business rules are:

• Who has authority to change them? - i.e., awareness, reflection and critique
  
• Are there clear guidelines to handle deviations? - six sigma type analysis, root causes and QC
  
• How do we build learning and adaption into the system? - meta rules for double loop learning, FEMA and failure analysis
  
• Is there a way to monitor and deal with rule cascades? - understanding rule dependencies is often more important that the actual rule(s) itself!
  
• Is the context adequately specified? - this is where rules most often fail

I tend to favor patterns over rules as a way to capture experience and learnings, here is why: there is a specific focus on context specification, relationships to other patterns are clearly articulated and a description of the forces at play helps with broarder understanding. Rules tend to be brittle, difficult to comprehend their full implications, i.e., their behavior is often uncertain when they form part of larger systems and they do not have the social rituals that help with agility, adaptation, review and reflection associated with a true pattern language and community.

The promise of patterns

Hope this helps

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