Row Two: Business Owners Views
Row Two: Business Owners ' Views When the time comes to analyze the enterprise from the business owners' viewpoint, the focus turns to the objectives, goals, strategies, and tactics that constitute business motivation at this level. These are terms that are commonly used but rarely defined precisely. The Business Rules Group Motivation paper is an attempt to define them in a rigorous , precise way. That group's definitions follow here. [2] In addition, it is important to address the question of how to discover rules. In Business Rules Applied , Ms. von Halle has some useful tips as to how to do this, and these follow the definition sections below.
According to the Business Rules Group's Motivation Model, the business owners' views of motivation are in terms of
EndAn end is a statement about what the business seeks to accomplish. The important thing to remember about an end is that it does not include any indication of how it will be achieved. Analysis of an organization (a department or a whole enterprise) begins with examination of the ends of that organization. Previously, we saw that the enterprise's first end is its vision. That is a statement about the future state of the enterprise, without regard to how it is to be achieved. Another kind of end is desired result a state or target that the enterprise intends to attain and maintain. While a vision is an end that is a statement about the future state of the enterprise, a desired result is an end that amplifies a vision. A desired result is either a goal or an objective. GoalA goal is a desired result that has the following characteristics:
More specifically , a goal is a statement about a general state or condition of the enterprise, which is to be brought about or sustained over time through appropriate means. A goal amplifies a vision and should be relatively narrowly defined. It can then be quantified by an objective. For example, a pizza parlor may have the goal of delivering pizza on time most of the time. ObjectiveAnother kind of desired result is an objective . This is a statement of a specific time- targeted , measurable, attainable target that an enterprise seeks to meet in order to achieve its goals. It quantifies a goal. Compared to a goal, an objective is short- term and does not continue beyond its timeframe (which may be cyclical). Specifically, an objective is:
Our pizza company's objective is, for the next three months, to deliver each pizza within 30 minutes of the call. MeansRevealing an organization's ends sheds new light on the means at its disposal to meet them. The Business Rules Group's Motivation Model presents means in a particularly interesting way. The particular components of means are properly the subject of the other five columns of the Architecture frameworkespecially the activity models. Mission, strategies and tactics define the direction of the company, however, so they are discussed here. They should be captured as part of any requirements analysis project, regardless of how they are categorized. A means is a device, capability, regime , technique, restriction, agency, instrument, or method that may be called upon, activated, or enforced to achieve one or more ends. According to the Business Rules Group's Motivation Model, a means is either a course of action or an element of guidance. Course of ActionA course of action is a means that is an approach or plan for configuring some aspect of the enterprise, involving things, processes, locations, people, timing, or motivation undertaken to achieve ends. It must be either a strategy or a tactic. A strategy is a resource, skill, or competency that the enterprise can call uponaccepted by the enterprise as the right approach to achieve its goals, given the environmental constraints and risks. More than that, a strategy represents the right approach to achieve its goals, given the environmental constraints and risks the enterprise faces. A strategy for the pizza company could be to provide enough people and vehicles to meet demand. This is to address the goal of delivering pizza on time most of the time. A tactic represents part of the detailing of a strategy. A strategy tends to be longer term and broader in scope, while a tactic tends to be shorter term and narrower in scope. In the pizza company, tactics include hiring three new people and buying one more van. This is to address the objective of delivering each pizza within 30 minutes of the call. A strategy, then, implements one or more goals, while a tactic implements one or more objectives. A strategy is a course of action that is a component of a plan for a mission. A tactic, in turn , is a course of action to implement a strategy. That is, a tactic is a particular set of steps taken to achieve a strategy, which in turn is a set of steps taken to achieve a mission. Note that mission, strategies, and tactics are legitimate first levels in a function hierarchy, as it is developed as a Column Two activity model. This is described further in Chapter 4. Courses of action may enable other courses of action. For example, one tactic, which is to implement a marketing strategy (such as an advertising campaign), might enable or increase the effectiveness of another tactic (such as a direct mail program). Note, by the way, that a system development project itself is a course of action. Typically, it is in the nature of a tactic to implement a system development strategy. This means that in addition to the company's vision and mission referred to above, the context for any project must include articulation of the strategy it is to implement, along with the goals and objectives driving both the strategy and the tactics. Here is where the system development project is wedded to the enterprise's overall mission and strategies. Element of GuidanceA second kind of means in the Business Rules Group Motivation Model is element of guidance. An element of guidance is either a business policy or a business rule. This is a declarative statement (or set of such statements) defining or constraining some aspect of an enterprise. It is intended to assert business structure or to control or influence the behavior of the enterprise. A course of action may be constrained by one or more elements of guidance, and an element of guidance may be a constraint on one or more courses of action. Indeed, each element of guidance may either be the source of a course of action or a guide to it. A business policy is an element of guidance that is a statement (or set of statements) whose purpose is to guide the enterprise. A business rule , on the other hand, is a specific directive, intended to influence or guide business behavior, derived from (in support of) a business policy. Business rules are the constraints that determine the everyday workings of business. Each business policy may be composed of one or more other business policies and may be the basis for one or more business rules. For example, a business policy may be that expenses are not reimbursed unless they are for business purposes. A business rule that supports this business policy may be that "entertainment expenses" that are not directly associated with marketing the company's products are not reimbursable . An element of guidance must be subject to an enforcement level a value that specifies the severity of action imposed in order to put or keep a business rule or business policy in force. A set of enforcement levels might include the following:
An element of guidance may support one or more goals or objectives. AssessmentAn assessment is a measure of the effect an influence has on either a means or an end, where an influence in turn, is the act, process, or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of tangible force or direct exercise of command. An influence is often without deliberate effort or intent. This could be an external influence such as technology, a supplier or vendor, or a regulation. Or it could be an internal influence such as the company's infrastructure, resource quality, or corporate culture. An assessment asserts that the influence constitutes a strength, weakness, opportunity, or threat for an organization. (Some business analysts refer to these elements by the acronym "SWOT".) The influence is also expressed as either a risk or a potential reward (an impact value). This determination is a judgment about the influences in which these things operate . A strength is an assessment that asserts that an influence can positively affect an enterprise's employment of either a means or the achievement of an end (an advantage or area of excellence, for example). A weakness is an assessment that asserts that an influence exists within the enterprise that can have a negative impact on its employment of a means or achievement of an end (such as an area of inadequacy). An opportunity is an assessment asserting that an influence (in this case, something in the environment) can have a favorable impact on the organization's employment of a means or the achievement of an end. A threat is an assessment asserting that an influence (also something in the environment) can have an unfavorable impact on the organization's employment of a means or the achievement of an end. An impact value is an evaluation that quantifies or qualifies an assessment in specific terms, types, or dimensions. An impact value is either a risk or a potential reward. An assessment in terms of risk indicates the possibility of a loss. This loss could be expressed either as a probability (e.g., "5% probability of a project's failing") or as an absolute number (e.g., "There is a risk that we will lose $500,000 on this venture.") An assessment in terms of potential reward indicates the possibility of a gain. As with risk, a potential reward may be expressed as a probability or an absolute number. An assessment, then, is a judgment that an influence affects the employment of a means or the achievement of an end, in terms of that influence's risk or potential reward. Specifically, it asserts that an influence constitutes a weakness, a strength, an opportunity, or a threat for either an end or a means, in terms of an impact value (a risk or a potential reward). The Business Rules Group paper presents as a case study a fictional car rental agency, EU-Rent. The assessments in that example include the following:
Discovering RulesThe business owner's view of motivation, then, comes down to his understanding of corporate mission, goals, and objectives, plus the business policies and rules he must work under to carry out these mission, goals, and objectives. The question now is, how do we find out what those rules are? Ms. von Halle describes the discovery process in detail in Business Rules Applied . She distinguishes between discovering the initial requirements for addressing rules and discovering the details of the rules themselves . To discover the initial requirements, she begins by analyzing the processes and events, such as those described in Chapters 4 and 7 here for essential data flow diagrams. Even if processes and events are not that rigorously modeled yet, they can be listed and mapped to each other early in the analysis process. One way to do this is via use cases, which can be structured to describe each event and the processes that are in response to it. Once these interactions between events and processes have been identified, it is possible to identify the decisions implicit in each process. Whichever way a decision goes, by implication , one or more rules are in effect to determine the way that decision is made. It is possible to identify the mental processes associated with the decision, and from these to infer the existence of rules. Then, in the descriptions of these rules are things referenced and knowledge created. These elements can be correlated with the data model (or object class model) to be sure they are accounted for. Finally, this evaluation identifies the action taken as a result of this set of rules interacting with the event. In short, orientation toward business rules during requirements analysis constitutes a move from simply discovering organizational behavior to unearthing decisions and rules behind it. "You quickly shift your focus from events and processes (the doing aspect) to the discovery and formal analysis of the decision making (the intellectual aspect) behind a business event" [von Halle, 2002, p. 73]. Once the decisions involving rules have been discovered , it is then a matter of following up to describe the rules themselves. This involves:
From this point, the process merges with the Column One process of modeling data. That is, each rule is identified as to the entities, attributes, and relationships involved in its expression. |
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EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 129