Rules: Shaping Behavior and Knowledge By Ronald G. Ross
Your Guide to Real-World Rules
This book is about rules for groups and communities of people (including their data). The goal? Shaping behavior and communicating business knowledge, not simply mimicking human intelligence. It’s exactly what you need for governance, traceability, and the human touch so often missing in digital solutions.
About Rules
Rules are not actions and not processes. Nor are they instructions or commands. Rules are something else, something special.
Confusion abounds about what rules are. What makes a statement special when you call it a rule? What restrictions does that place on how the statement is expressed? What special opportunities does it raise? These are crucial questions, some of the most fundamental you can ask.
Time for a fresh look. Rules are almost certainly not what you think they are. And that lack of understanding is holding us back.
By the author who literally wrote the book on business rules!
“For the longest time I’ve been encouraged by family, friends and colleagues to write down everything I’ve learned about rules over a lifetime of hands-on consulting, research, and standards work. So, I did. This book is the result. It accurately distills much of what I’ve learned about rules in what is hopefully highly readable form. I believe you’ll benefit from it, no matter what your professional orientation. We literally all have rules in common!”
– Ron Ross
Who Is This Book For?
- Policy Maker
- Policy Advisor
- Policy Interpreter
- Legislative Drafter
- Rule Maker
- Regulator
- Compliance Officer
- Legal Staff
- Contract Drafter
- Auditor
- Risk Analyst
- Decision Modeler
- Rule Analyst
- Business Analyst
- Requirements Engineer
- Product Owner
- Data Quality Professional
- Data Governance Professional
- Business Process Manager
- Business Process Analyst
- Business System Analyst
- Business Software Developer
If your role or responsibility involves one or more of the above, you’ll find a treasure trove of practical ideas in this book you can apply in your daily responsibilities.
Being rule-based is the most basic characteristic of Western civilization. If you want to deeply understand rules, look no further. Here’s how to be rule-based about anything involving groups and communities of people, including their knowledge!
Paperback – $24.95
Kindle – $14.95
This Book Will Show You How To:
- Create better rules
- Insert sentiment, human discretion, and common sense into real-time business activity
- Express data constraints in natural language
- Distinguish rules and requirements
- Chose the right form to express rules and guidance
- Communicate guidance clearly and completely
- Identify defects in rules
- Reduce ambiguity in all forms of guidance
- Treat exceptions to rules
- Handle violations of rules
- Interpret policy into practicable rules ready to deploy
- Bridge the gap between laws, regulations, and contracts — and automation
- Address problems in data quality
- Disseminate knowledge in real time
- Improve your governance processes
What Reviewers Say
"Full of valuable insights and practical advice not only for people new to the topic, but also for seasoned experts."
Patrick Grässle
"The combination of perspectives is absolutely outstanding."
Markus Schacher
"… explains rules in clear, accessible language, along with their place in the landscape of business concept modeling and ontologies."
Mike Bennett
"Every analyst writing a definition, constraint, rule, or guideline should learn from Ron's guidance. The result is easy to understand...
Silvie Spreeuwenberg
"… lighthearted and fun, but still potent. Why has this crucial message not been getting through to people?!"
Kim Schilling
"… how to move business rules from unclear and ill-considered diktats to thought-through and clear boundaries that promote freedom."
Alex Hamilton
"… your go-to book for understanding rules and all the ways we can use them in the world around us."
Jasmine Lee
"… engaging style. Recommended reading for legislative drafters. Remarkable the main textbooks don't really deal with how rules work."
Matthew Waddington
"... a nice, clear read. Stresses the importance of (good) behavioral rules, proper automation, and direct support for violations."
Jan Vanthienen
"… should be well-thumbed, annotated in the margins, and full of sticky notes. Get it, internalize it, act on it."
Fred Simkin
"By capturing and interpreting rules, I always feel we understand things deeply and clearly."
Eric Brown
"… concise and to the point, accessible for many disciplines and relevant to a large public. I highly recommend it."
Charlotte Bouvy
"… a must read for any governance professional."
Bas van der Raadt
"… groundwork for an engineered way of communication between business experts and developers that allows knowledge to be shared at...
Antonio Catalá & Amir de la Torre
"… reminds us about the importance of clear rules and policies for any organization caring about people experience across its...
Gilles Morin
"… essential reading for anyone involved in business change; crucial for anyone undertaking business analysis."
Adrian Reed
Donald Chapin
...Terry Halpin
...Robert Dizinno
...David Lyalin
...Contents
Preface
Part I. About Rules
Chapter I-1. What Rules Do for Us
Chapter I-2. What Rules Are
Chapter I-3. The Two Fundamental Kinds of Rules
Chapter I-4. About Violations of Behavioral Rules
Chapter I-5. About Definitional Rules: What Counts?
Part II. Expressing Rules
Chapter II-1. Being Practicable
Chapter II-2. Being Declarative
Chapter II-3. Being Factual
Chapter II-4. Being Complete
Chapter II-5. Being Unambiguous
Part III. Analyzing Rules
Chapter III-1. Discovery of Rules
Chapter III-2. Discovery of Flash Points
Chapter III-3. Discovery of Messages
Part IV. Rule Quality
Chapter IV-1. Exceptions
Chapter IV-2. Anomalies
Chapter IV-3. Knock-Out Rules
Part V. Permissions, Authorizations, and Rights
Chapter V-1. Permissions
Chapter V-2. Authorizations
Chapter V-3. Rights
Conclusion: Rule Platforms in Business & Government
Appendices
Appendix A. Concept Model Diagram for Factual Expression of Rules
Appendix B. Ensuring Logical Consistency of Guidance
Appendix C. About Decision Tables
Appendix D. A Word About ‘Decision’
Appendix E. Concept Models and Their Representation
Appendix F. Modalities: Forms of Guidance
Appendix G. Positive Reinforcement and Rewards
Appendix H. Sample Enforcement Levels for Behavioral Rules
Appendix I. Warranties
Appendix J. Usage Constraints for Applicability Conditions
Appendix K. Why Not Use IF-THEN Syntax
Appendix L. The Relationship of Facts and Data
Appendix M. Structural Forms of Expression for Rules
Appendix N. Use of ‘WHEN’
Appendix O. Flash Points and Definitional Rules
Appendix P. Eliminating Programmer Workload for Rules
Appendix Q. Definitions, Rules, and Logical Implications
Glossary
Index
Who is Ron Ross
Ron is one of the world’s foremost authorities on both structured and unstructured data. He is Co-Founder and Principal of Business Rule Solutions, LLC (BRS). At BRS, he has helped create concept models at hundreds of companies and government bodies.
Ron is Chair of Building Business Capabilities (BBC), the official conference of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA®). He is best known for his industry-leading work on business rules, and before that, for his contributions in the field of data design and database. He was a founder and is a principal in standards work at OMG on SBVR (Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules), the ground-breaking standard behind concept models.
Ron has keynoted dozens of conferences and given seminars to many thousands of people worldwide. He is currently Executive Editor of BRCommunity.com and its flagship on-line publication, Business Rules Journal. Ron is recognized internationally as the ‘father of business rules.’
Ron is the author of ten professional books including the first on data dictionaries and data administration in 1981. Books on business rules include the classic Business Rule Concepts: Getting to the Point of Knowledge4th ed. (2013) and Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules 2nd ed. with Gladys S.W. Lam (2015). He is co-author with John Zachman and Roger Burlton of the 2017 Business Agility Manifesto.
Ron received DAMA International’s Individual Achievement Award for 1995. He was formerly Editor of the Data Base Newsletter from 1977 to 1998. Ron holds an M.S. in information science from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a B.A. from Rice University.