Business Rules Applied: Building Better Systems Using the Business Rules Approach

Author: Barbara Von Halle List Price: $44.99 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 0471412937 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (15 September, 2001) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 25,990 Average Customer Rating: 4.2 out of 5

Buy now directly from Amazon.com -

Customer Reviews

However, I wish the book can be less verbose, with less repetition of the same concepts (such as continuously expounding on the advantages of business rules approach) throughout the whole book. They are distracting and not necessary. The book could have been more concise.

This is a topic worth exploring into and I hope some of UML/MDA efforts can incorporate the ideas here.

I have now implemented many of the ideas and techniques from the book and placed my business rules project on a road to success. My project has endured many obstacles, not the least of which is understanding the differences that are imposed on the project team from traditional re-engineering efforts. If I hadn't come across Barbara's excellent documentation on project scoping, rules discovery, and designing for the business rules approach, I would have seriously doubted our ability to implement the project successfully. My project team was able to read and comprehend the most important concepts from the book and we have been able to modify our project plan to incorporate her ideas and techniques.

I believe it is our responsibility as IT professionals to recognize the importance of the business rules movement and to follow a strict methodology when implementing any rules engine initiative. I must personally thank Barbara for sharing some of the most important concepts with this methodology. I honestly consider it my blueprint for success.

Business Rules, like Data Warehousing, both have the potential to dramatically reverse the downward spiral in the credibility and coherence of many IT organizations. Both initiatives focus on giving the business what it wants; Data Warehousing from mainly a strategic decision-making perspective and Business Rules from mainly an operational-support and tactical-orientation perspective.

To understand the importance of the role of Business Rules in business is to recognize a done deal, to actively go about leveraging Business Rules as the key component in process development, application development and application evolution is really the thing that will separate the smart people from the sceptics.

One of the problems of Business Rules, like Data Warehousing as well, is that they are both seemingly intuitive - the sort of thing that one could do just by imagining oneself what needs to be done. Now, don't let me put you off, and I would say that there is an element of truth in the idea that, at a certain level of abstraction, both the Data Warehousing and Business Rules concepts are very straightforward. However, and this is the crux of the matter, there are a number of seemingly small and insignificant project decisions to be made where the right decisions (based on experience) are not always the most obvious or intuitive choices, especially when we base our decisions on knowledge of other IT project methods, and, which in turn could lead to decisions that result in the collapse of your BR or DW project and the failure of yet another IT project.

So, if you think that Business Rules might be just the thing for your business then read this book. In it you will find a wealth of knowledge and experience. It leads the reader from a good description of real reasons for using the Business Rules approach, Business Rules concepts, through to the process of identifying, defining and capturing Business Rules, and describes, in great detail, an iterative project approach to the active and evolutionary management of Business Rules in business. The book is well structured, is easy to read - for such a detailed book - and, focuses on important issues, options and decisions involved in Business Rules.

As a long term advocate of the Business Rules approach I could not rate this book more highly.

Best regards,

Martyn R Jones
Iniciativa Org, SL

Similar Products