Customer Reviews

Business Rule Concepts - Getting to the Point of Knowledge

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ross presents the underlying concepts of using business rules as a fundamental component of system development (or just running the business!) This is an easy book to read. It presents the concepts so clearly that even Dilbert's boss could understand it and act correctly.

His courses are also well worth attending.

All that is missing is how to build and implement an architecture that supports this vision (though the basic rules-based features that it must support are discussed).

I have been practicing the Business Rules Approach for the last 6 years and Ron Ross' 3rd Edition of Business Rule Concepts is a must have reference book for every Business Analyst. It is a great introductory and reminder of the core concepts to following and implementing the Business Rules Approach. I highly reccommend that this book accompany training on the Business Rules Approach from BR Solutions, as hands on activities and talking with the instructors face to face really help with integrating the concepts discussed in this book.

I don't believe this book is meant as a how-to guide on implementing a Business Rules Approach all the way through IT implementation as another reviewer mentioned as a fault. Although, that is an excellent idea for a subsequent book!

In the spirit of full disclosure I will admit I have been a fan of Ron Ross's work since I first took a course with Ron and Gladys Lam some years ago (you should take the course too).

It took my team at work a long time to understand and begin to employ a structured business vocabulary as an essential part of business rule and requirements development. This 3rd Edition offers more substance, clarity and development of the underlying business rule concepts then the previous edition, is better organized, and since the numerous footnotes in the previous edition have either been eliminated or incorporated into the body of the work, reads easier and faster.

We used the 2nd edition as material for training our team but there remained some outstanding questions and gaps in our understanding. This 3rd edition does much to close those gaps and it will become the basis for our continued training and development of our methodology.

Parts of this book seem to me superficial. It explains only very basic concepts about business rules and it does not go into detail how you can manage and implement these rules in a company. The book has only 99 pages whereby 30% of the book are cartoons and pictures. Therefore, I think that the book is totally overpriced and doesn't deliver enough knowledge how to apply business rules in a real-world situation.

I read the 3rd edition of the book and liked it in general. I can't think of a better way to do my job (the BA portion of it) without using these concepts. In fact, I can readily differentiate between a good BA work and average BA work by seeing their use of business rules.

About the book, it certainly need some changes to become more useful. I like the fact that it's a 140 page read with drawings (which makes the relatively dry subject less scary) but a lot of the drawings don't bring any value (or cannot be used as visual cues).

Also, I would have liked to see more practical approach. These concepts are really new and a lot of BAs claim they simply don't have time to do the elaborate work so adding some quick and easy to use methods could have helped a lot.

Overall, glat to have read the book!

Defining a BA as someone who analyzes the operation of a company business and it's organization, this book is extremely useful.

Includes:
- different types of BRs,
- where to find BRs,
- best practices for capturing BRs,
- and touches on ways to model BRs.

As a requirements analyst of 20 odd years, I found the content educational and even learnt some new practices for use in the future. The book sticks to the subject material and does not for the most part include ideas that do not pan out into usable solutions (as happens in many books of a technical nature).

If I have one criticism, it's that it does not go far enough into enough detail about how to automate business rules. It touches on the subject in Part 4, but could delve into this topic in a lot more detail. In fact a sequel could be written on this subject.

4 1/2 *s

SVBR has defined the standards for the Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules. For non-experts (and for some experts) these standards are very difficult to read and understand. In his book Business Rule Concept Ronald Ross brings these standards to life. He takes the reader step by step through the process of defining business rules and clearly indicates the pittfalls on this route. By doing so he brings the vocabulary, semantics and logic together in a way which can be understood by both business people and business analysts.
As the title of the books says it is about concepts. Applying and implementing the concept is a different subject which is not covered by this book.

Ron Ross was kind enough to send me a copy of his recently publishd 3rd edition of his book, Business Rule Concepts. Ron has been at the forefront of mainstreaming business rule capture for decades. Personally, I am most fond of his leadership in establishing the Object Management Group's Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules standard (OMG's SBVR).

This book is an indispensible backgrounder and introduction to the concepts necessary to effectively manage business rules. By no means is this a book about SBVR. Rather, it is about the core and critical concepts necessary to understand how to define a manageable enterprise repository of declarative knowledge covering business.

This book serves as a great foundation for my understanding of Business Rules and how to apply them in our organization.

The material is presented in an entertaining and coherent way. It is assessable to those who are new to business rules and need a place to start.

I definitely recommend it.

Great book that provides a foundational understanding of business rules. The book explains the fundamental concepts of business vocabulary and business rules. The examples provided add clarity to the topic being presented. Business Rule Concepts is essential reading for a business analyst and anyone working with business rules in IT or business operations.