From the article: Abstract Business rules (BR’s) play a critical role in an organization’s daily activities. With the increased use of BR (solutions) and ever increasing change frequency of BR’s the interest in modifiability guidelines that address the manageability of BR’s has increased as well. A method of approach to improve manageability and modifiability is to utilize architectures to structure BR’s. In current literature three different methods to structure business rules can be identified: 1) the rule family-oriented approach, 2) the fact-oriented approach and, 3) the decision-oriented approach. Scientific research comparing the ability to modify business rules in each of the three architectural candidates is limited. The goal of this research is to evaluate which architectural candidate and underlying architectural structures allow for the best modifiability. We sought to do so by applying design science research for the creation of the architectural candidates and by conducting semi-structured interviews to identify the case-specific productivity scores. By applying an Architecture-Level Modifiability Analysis using eight years of historical data from the British National Health Service each architectural candidate is evaluated with regards to its modifiability. Results of the analysis reveal that the rule family-oriented architecture scores best on modifiability, followed by the fact-oriented architecture, and lastly the decision-oriented architecture. The results of this study provide a foundation for further research on the application and evaluation of business rule architectures.
LINK
Business Rule Management (BRM) is a means to make decision-making within organizations explicit and manageable. BRM functions within the context of an Enterprise Architecture (EA). The aim of EA is to enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals. Ideally, BRM and EA should be well aligned. This paper explores through study of case study documentation the BRM design choices that relate to EA and hence might influence the organizations ability to achieve a digital business strategy. We translate this exploration into five propositions relating BRM design choices to EA characteristics.
Author supplied Business rules play a critical role in an organization’s daily activities. With the increased use of business rules (solutions) the interest in modelling guidelines that address the manageability of business rules has increased as well. However, current research on modelling guidelines is mainly based on a theoretical view of modifications that can occur to a business rule set. Research on actual modifications that occur in practice is limited. The goal of this study is to identify modifications that can occur to a business rule set and underlying business rules. To accomplish this goal we conducted a grounded theory study on 229 rules set, as applied from March 2006 till June 2014, by the National Health Service. In total 3495 modifications have been analysed from which we defined eleven modification categories that can occur to a business rule set. The classification provides a framework for the analysis and design of business rules management architectures.
