Title: Challenging
the Rules: An Investigation of a Fact-Based Approach for Specifying Business
Rules
Abstract: Numerous industry surveys have suggested
that many IT projects still end in failure. Incomplete, ambiguous and inaccurate
system specifications have been cited as a major causal factor. Perhaps this
is not so surprising since most traditional data modelling tools for specifying
requirements most often lack the expressiveness with which to capture subtle
but common features within organisations. Consequently, a significant number
of the business rules that determine the structure and behaviour of organisations
may not be discovered until the latter stages of the development lifecycle.
Compounding this problem is the fact that most data modelling techniques
incorporate implementation details unfamiliar to business people. But unless
domain experts can actively challenge the analyst’s perception of the organisation’s
business rules, how can the analyst be certain that they are defining the
required system?
A fact-based technique called Object Role Modelling (ORM) has been investigated
as an alternative approach for expressing business rules. A case study conducted
by the author has indicated that expressing business rules using ORM constructs
could provide a mechanism for improving the quality of data requirements.
The case study discussed in this paper describes how the author attempted
to synthesise ORM with the concepts and definitions provided by the Business
Rules Group. In this way, the business rules discovered in a New Zealand
private training organisation were expressed in the natural language of ORM.
It will be suggested that ORM has the ability to capture and represent business
rules rigorously, but still in a form comprehensible to business people.
Fostering a more collaborative and transparent approach for capturing business
rules with domain experts could provide a powerful tool for validating and
improving the quality of data requirements for an organisation’s IT projects.