According to Wordnet, a rule is “a principle or condition that customarily governs behavior” or “a prescribed guide for conduct or action.” Businesses, and organizations in general, operate under a number of rules: rules about what services to offer and to whom; rules about how much to charge for those services; rules about how to handle service recipient requests; rules about hiring employees, promoting them, firing them, reimbursing their travel expenses, and paid leave rules; customer relationship management rules; web portal layout rules; salary scales and overtime rules; opening hours rules; emergency behavior guidelines; promotional campaign targeting rules; cross-selling rules, up-selling rules, meeting conduct rules; document disposal recycling and security rules; and so forth. Business rules are everywhere. Every bit of process, task, activity, or function, is governed by rules.

Thus, the question is not why business rules, but rather, how business rules? Currently, some of the business rules are implicit and thus poorly enforced; those should minimally be written (formalized), if not enforced. Others are written and not enforced. Others yet are poorly written and obscurely enforced. Some are even written and should not – but that is a different story J.

The business rule approach looks for ways to (1) write (elicit, communicate, manage) the important business rules in a way that all stakeholders can understand, and (2) enforce those business rules within the IT infrastructure in a way that supports their traceability and facilitates their maintenance.

The business rules approach is no longer the exotic paradigm it was at the turn of the century. Banks are doing it, insurance companies are doing it, phone companies are doing it, retailers are doing it, manufactures are doing it, and government agencies are doing it. This book is not about convincing you of the merits of the business rules approach – it is about helping you adopt it effectively.