1 00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:04,360 The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, the Better 2 00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:07,720 Business Analysis Podcast with Kenjan Walsh. 3 00:00:12,360 --> 00:00:15,240 Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the Better Business Analysis 4 00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:18,880 podcast with Benjamin Walsh. And we're continuing our BA Byte 5 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:20,520 series. And today we're talking about 6 00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:23,360 business rules and why they're so confusing. 7 00:00:24,120 --> 00:00:27,680 Business rules, I find, are one of the areas that aren't talked 8 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:31,960 about much in business analysis. They don't really have a 9 00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:38,200 structured format in terms of how you should follow them or 10 00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:40,400 the pattern in terms of how you should write them. 11 00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:44,760 And I think they're one of the most misunderstood pieces of the 12 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:47,600 puzzle when it comes to business analysis. 13 00:00:47,760 --> 00:00:51,520 So let's dive in. What is a business rule and why 14 00:00:51,520 --> 00:00:53,720 it might be different to what you think of business rule is 15 00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:59,400 and why you may need to change your mindset when it comes to 16 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:03,120 business rules. So business rules are scenario 17 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:05,840 rules that come from the business, which are driven by 18 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:09,320 legislation changes or what the business wants, right? 19 00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:13,080 And they're defined for the business and then they can 20 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:17,000 translate to how the machine, the business machine operates. 21 00:01:18,160 --> 00:01:21,360 So you've got requirements, which of course are requirements 22 00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:24,960 either within a change process or for something you're telling 23 00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:28,800 or defining what you want the system or solution to do. 24 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:33,160 These are now scenario rules. Here's an example. 25 00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:39,600 A simple example would be a customer needs to be 18 to open 26 00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:42,920 an account. That's the business rule, and I 27 00:01:42,920 --> 00:01:47,520 like the way that's structured. A customer, one of our actors, 28 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:54,120 needs to be 18, a defined variable to open function, which 29 00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:57,720 of course open an account would be a requirement here. 30 00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:01,800 And then account, an account is one of our business entities. 31 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:05,960 That's a really great example of our business rule, and that's 32 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:08,240 actually the format in which you should write it. 33 00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:14,040 A more complicated example would be a discount depends on the 34 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:17,840 customer's loyalty tier, and then that could reference maybe 35 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:22,880 Excel spreadsheet, a table or a matrix which had the lists of 36 00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:25,200 the discounts and the loyalty tier. 37 00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:31,560 Nothing in there is defining how the code should be written. 38 00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:33,400 And this is where B as get mucked up. 39 00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:37,120 This is where B as go too low or don't think it's their job to 40 00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:41,240 construct business rules or it's the technical team asking for 41 00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:43,920 rules to be filled in. Once they're building the 42 00:02:43,920 --> 00:02:47,360 solution, they should all be done up front before a solution 43 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:50,280 is defined. In order to make your business 44 00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:53,720 rules better, we need them to be. 45 00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:56,560 We need to have like some consistent way of defining them. 46 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:58,840 OK. Business rules are things where 47 00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:02,440 decisions can be made. There there there are a a prime 48 00:03:02,440 --> 00:03:05,080 point where you should review business rules when you're 49 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:07,400 making a change to a system or a product. 50 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:10,680 And a lot of times actually you may just be changing business 51 00:03:10,680 --> 00:03:12,720 rules. An example here would be of a 52 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:18,160 piece of legislation came out that changed how old you needed 53 00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:21,880 to be in order to get your driver's license. 54 00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:24,520 Let's say, let's say it was reduced from 18 to 16. 55 00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:28,720 That could translate directly to a business rule for the 56 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:31,920 government department that issues driver's license that 57 00:03:31,920 --> 00:03:34,960 there may there would might be a change project. 58 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:36,840 Of course there would be a change project to implement. 59 00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:39,920 OK, what does that mean? OK, well, this legislation could 60 00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:42,520 will go two ways here. One, we've got a business rule 61 00:03:42,520 --> 00:03:45,560 and then we've got business requirements off there issuing 62 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:51,600 what we print on the IDs, how we check people's ages, maybe based 63 00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:54,360 on passports or whatever. So all of those which are just 64 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:56,760 the process requirements, which would drop out because it's the 65 00:03:56,760 --> 00:03:58,480 process problem and a policy problem. 66 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:01,400 And then the business rule would be OK, we've got a legislation 67 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:03,920 change here from 18 to 16. That's the business rule. 68 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:05,800 So that's a business rule change. 69 00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:09,280 And that's exactly the language we need to use are the benefits 70 00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:13,040 of defining a business rule as an explicit statement and maybe 71 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:16,480 even having them in an explicit list so you can pull them out 72 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:19,680 because they exist regardless of the solution that you have put 73 00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:21,880 in place. Refer back to them and you can 74 00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:23,880 check them from time to time. And you should do that as a 75 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:26,120 business. Business rules provide less 76 00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:29,400 confusion, OK, and less waste figures figuring things out. 77 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:30,800 Business rules are really important. 78 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:35,080 If you document them, then you can really see any legal or 79 00:04:35,080 --> 00:04:37,800 regulatory requirements or policy requirements. 80 00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:40,800 They generally come from organization or policy 81 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:43,360 requirements or environmental requirements that you need to 82 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:45,760 adhere to. But the business can also adopt 83 00:04:45,760 --> 00:04:49,120 their own rules which are hence the word business rules. 84 00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:53,040 They help with decision making and it helps everyone understand 85 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:56,920 why behind the decision and when you write them. 86 00:04:56,920 --> 00:04:59,520 Here are some key points you need to me make sure that you're 87 00:04:59,520 --> 00:05:02,200 using plain language. Everyone in the business can 88 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:04,720 understand everyone. Probably everyone outside the 89 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:07,760 business can understand. You need no room for 90 00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:10,760 interpretation. OK, there are almost terms and 91 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:13,120 conditions here. Clear terms and conditions. 92 00:05:13,560 --> 00:05:15,760 I'm not talking about going to the legal department, but 93 00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:19,240 sometimes you might need to if you really want to get clear on 94 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:21,520 a point. But then you want to reinterpret 95 00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:24,200 that into business language and refer to the document. 96 00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:27,000 If people want to understand what you mean by some of the 97 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,600 definitions or some of the terms you're using, you need to focus 98 00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:33,880 on outcomes. State the desired result, not 99 00:05:33,880 --> 00:05:37,520 the specific steps, OK, unless they are critical in the 100 00:05:37,520 --> 00:05:39,880 business rules. So for example, if customer 101 00:05:39,880 --> 00:05:45,440 chooses X then Y, if they choose A then then B. 102 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:49,200 But that's the only only if that is affecting the scenario of the 103 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:51,520 business rule. Otherwise state the desired 104 00:05:51,520 --> 00:05:55,960 result which has maybe providing discounts to customers. 105 00:05:56,600 --> 00:05:59,400 Test and refine them with your stakeholders and revise them. 106 00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:02,520 And actually some of these business rules, not the system, 107 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:05,320 not the product, are things you could test, AB test. 108 00:06:05,320 --> 00:06:08,160 You could say, OK, well one of our business rules is we're not 109 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:15,280 going to provide loans to people with bad credit ratings, right? 110 00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:18,000 Under a certain threshold that could that's a business rule. 111 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:19,560 And you've applied that into the system. 112 00:06:19,760 --> 00:06:21,280 You're like, well, we're testing this. 113 00:06:21,280 --> 00:06:23,960 So you could have a flexible business rule in the system. 114 00:06:23,960 --> 00:06:26,720 And then maybe you're like, actually a whole business model 115 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:30,320 will fail business, business model, business rule that we 116 00:06:30,320 --> 00:06:34,640 will now open up some loans, a smaller amount of money to 117 00:06:34,640 --> 00:06:38,640 people with better credit ratings, but we're not gonna 118 00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:40,960 have as high risk. So we're not gonna loan them 119 00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:43,520 large amounts of money. And actually we've defined that 120 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:45,880 we've had our sweet spot. So these business rules need to 121 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:48,920 be malleable and they need to be able to change at some point. 122 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:52,400 I'm going to now talk to you about what business rules are 123 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:53,760 not. So we've talked about that. 124 00:06:53,760 --> 00:06:56,400 Business rules are almost Co equal with other requirements 125 00:06:56,400 --> 00:06:58,480 such as process model requirements, where a lot of 126 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:01,200 requirements come from, right? They're the rules that govern 127 00:07:01,200 --> 00:07:05,240 the process sub process steps or how you carry out the procedure. 128 00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:07,360 They are definitely part of the model year. 129 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:10,080 So you need to put them under your requirements, your user 130 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:13,360 stories, and they do drop out of process steps. 131 00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:17,040 So a business rule guides the behavior and the decision making 132 00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:19,880 within the organization. So it's what actions can they 133 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:24,000 take under what conditions. Whereas a system rule governs 134 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:28,880 the behavior of the specific system or solution and and B as 135 00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:32,480 need to walk a tightrope here. I think there was a term I used 136 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:36,880 this week. System rules dictate how the 137 00:07:36,880 --> 00:07:40,480 system processes datas and performs calculations. 138 00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:43,840 Some of the rules are written so in the system, as in we've we've 139 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:46,480 said we want to implement. If someone has a bad credit 140 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:50,760 rating, do the following thing. We've, we've only ever defined 141 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:54,680 that in the system to say, oh, when we hit the system step in 142 00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:58,400 the, I don't know, SQL procedure, we're going to pump 143 00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:00,760 them out. Business rules can relate to 144 00:08:00,840 --> 00:08:04,120 system rules, code code rules, but the business rule comes 145 00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:05,400 first. Do you need, if you've got 146 00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:07,720 those, if you're in a current state where you haven't actually 147 00:08:07,720 --> 00:08:11,240 defined your business capital B business rules, pull them out. 148 00:08:11,240 --> 00:08:13,040 OK, so you can do that with your current state. 149 00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:15,160 You can go through and go, hey, look, I'm going to spend the 150 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:17,520 day, I'm going to write up all our business rules. 151 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:19,000 We don't actually have them defined. 152 00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:22,520 They're all baked into our code and that's why we're stuck with 153 00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:24,480 the system we've got. It's one of the reasons why we 154 00:08:24,480 --> 00:08:26,520 don't have optionality. So I'm going to go through, I'm 155 00:08:26,520 --> 00:08:30,160 going to interview the the DBA or the developers and I'm going 156 00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:33,039 to pull out some of these rules so they're clearer to our 157 00:08:33,039 --> 00:08:36,159 product owners, to the business, so they understand what's baked 158 00:08:36,200 --> 00:08:39,400 into our process. This happens often and I'm sure 159 00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:41,840 you're in this situation too. Whereas no one actually knows 160 00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:43,200 what the rules are that were applied. 161 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:45,960 It's just legacy. And so by pulling those out and 162 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:48,680 defining them, you can actually take stock and do an audit, a 163 00:08:48,680 --> 00:08:51,960 business rule audit, which I think is really good for BAS to 164 00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:53,760 do. And the other thing that 165 00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:57,240 business rules really talk to is, is flexibility that business 166 00:08:57,240 --> 00:08:58,840 rules can change business changes. 167 00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:03,560 And things like the fact that we had system rules in place for 168 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:08,960 GST or VAT which were baked into our systems or we had, you know, 169 00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:11,600 Y2K like dates baked into our systems. 170 00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:15,360 They were all system rules that were never really defined or 171 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:18,360 explicit as business rules. And if they were then the 172 00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:21,040 business, of course, our leadership team would go, what 173 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:24,040 do you, what do you mean our system can't go past the year 174 00:09:24,040 --> 00:09:25,880 2000? Sorry, that's definitely not a 175 00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:28,120 business rule. That might be a system problem 176 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,560 that we have inherited because it's, you know, bad code or 177 00:09:31,560 --> 00:09:34,400 someone's baked it in or equally, what do you mean we 178 00:09:34,400 --> 00:09:39,600 can't change the GST VAT right from 15 to 17% without giving 179 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:42,720 $1,000,000 to SAP to do a change program? 180 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:45,760 So in summary, business rules are from the business, they come 181 00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:48,200 from your stakeholders, they come from the owner of the 182 00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:51,520 system or product or area in which you are managing the 183 00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:53,480 business owner. So if you're not in a project 184 00:09:53,480 --> 00:09:56,040 form, you know, like you have A and you don't have a product 185 00:09:56,040 --> 00:09:57,160 owner, that's your business owner. 186 00:09:57,400 --> 00:10:00,040 You define them in a list. When you are defining 187 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:02,920 requirements in that change space, in those process change 188 00:10:02,920 --> 00:10:07,280 spaces, your scope, you would define them and review them as 189 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:10,760 part of your requirements. And they should be under your 190 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:12,360 user stories. That's probably the easiest way 191 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:14,040 to do it. But I'd also have them in a 192 00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:16,640 defined list. They should be reviewed often 193 00:10:17,200 --> 00:10:22,680 and they should be written in a business, easy to understand why 194 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:26,480 in business terms, and they should be really clear and 195 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:29,080 concise. And if they're complex, then you 196 00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:31,880 may need to reference, you know, an article or a piece of 197 00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:34,720 legislation to explain why the statement exists. 198 00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:37,840 And yes, it's your job as ABA to do these. 199 00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:40,440 Actually, it's somewhere where B as can shine. 200 00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:43,280 Just like process modelling. Business rules are also an area 201 00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:48,120 where the BA, the B and BA comes out on top. 202 00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:49,240 I'll see you next week.