Business rules are often a hidden, crucial part of an organization's institutional knowledge. Unless business rules are subjected to the "light of day", an organization will be diminished in its capacity to make informed decisions, plan and estimate accurately, provide a consistent and positive experience for customers and vendors, and function in a productive and optimal manner.

Business rules have impact beyond the scope of any particular project and are applied across the organization. A specific rule may impact operational processes (as in a rule that describes the time period during which a request must be fulfilled), enterprise data (as in a rule that describes a calculation), roles (as in the requirement to establish a new audit function), and events (as in a rule that requires reporting to a government agency for transactions in excess of a certain dollar amount).

While business rules are defined as being under the control of the business, the need for a business rule is often triggered by an external entity, through laws and regulations, through the actions of competitors, and through the behavior of customers. In this regard, the urgency to implement a business rule may not be under the control of the business.

This presentation discusses where an organization can look for its business rules, how to discover and document those rules, and why capturing business rules is so important. We will also describe how an organization can achieve the many benefits of explicitly knowing its business rules.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the impact of rules on profitability, viability, adaptability, customer service, & risk
• Understand the challenges in discovering and documenting business rules
• Understand the many benefits gained by discovering and documenting business rules