Business Rules:  Knowledge for Knowledge Workers

by Ronald G. Ross

The first half of the 1990s has witnessed a wholesale transformation of business activity.  In the course of just a few frenetic years, business activity has become virtually synonymous with personal interaction with computers.

In the process, the very definition of "end-user" has changed irreversibly.  Nowadays it is fashionable to call the access-enabled end-user a knowledge worker.  The engine of this change, of course, is technological:  client-based processing, GUIs, and objects.  The question, however, is whether the newly access-enabled are becoming true knowledge workers.

Many companies across the globe are having concerns.  Their workers are reaching out into vast parsecs of cyberspace -- only to find great voids where they expected something of substance.  Where is that dark matter that keeps the business universe in balance?

What has happened is this.  In all the new-frontier excitement of recent years, we have placed most of our efforts into the work part of "knowledge worker," and very little into the knowledge part.

Now it is time to correct this imbalance and to fill the voids.  There is a label for this new turning-to-knowledge:  business rules.  In the second half of this decade, the company that fails to re-orient itself toward business rules is literally one that risks becoming lost in cyberspace.

The business-rule movement incorporates something old (data models), something new (rules), and something borrowed (use cases).  It exploits the good ideas of objects -- but goes far beyond them.  The goal is to establish a solid base for the knowledge-oriented activity of the business -- that is, to establish real knowledge for true knowledge workers.

standard citation for this article: Ronald G. Ross, "Business Rules:  Knowledge for Knowledge Workers," Data Base Newsletter, Vol. 23, No. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1995), URL:  http://www.BRCommunity.com/a1995/a504.html

September/October 1997

Implementing Application Packages: Is There A Better Way?

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July/August 1997

'Why' is Why Business Rule Methodology is Different

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May/June 1997

Never-ending On-the-Job Training

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September/October 1996

Re-Usability in the Business Rule Approach

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March/April 1996

The Newest Idea In Business Rules: Rules Normalize!

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January/February 1996

An Open Letter to DBMS Vendors: We Need Active Database Systems

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May/June 1995

The Greatest Irony Of The Information Age: Business Rules

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November/December 1995

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March/April 1994

"Play Ball!"

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November/December 1999 & January/February 2000

Enterprise Architecture: Issues, Ingibitors, and Incentives

By John A. Zachman

July/August & September/October 1999

Packages Don't Let You Off The Hook

By John A. Zachman

November/December 1988

The History Of Steam-Powered Ships

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January/February & March/April 1999

Life Is a Series of Trade-Offs and Change Is Accelerating!

By John A. Zachman

January/February 1994

"Business Rules, At What Cost?"

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November/December 1998

"Yes Virginia, There IS an Enterprise Architecture"

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May/June 1994

Business Rules:  Birth of a Movement

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January/February 2000

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July/August 1998

Enterprise Architecture:  Looking Back and Looking Ahead

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July/August 1991

Why I Like the Zachman Framework Architecture"

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January/February 1998

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Ronald G. Ross is Principal and Co-Founder of Business Rule Solutions, LLC, where he actively develops and applies the IPSpeak^™ methodology including RuleSpeak^®, DecisionSpeak^™ and TableSpeak^™.

Ron is recognized internationally as the "father of business rules." He is the author of ten professional books including the groundbreaking first book on business rules The Business Rule Book in 1994. His newest are:

• Business Rule Concepts: Getting to the Point of Knowledge
  (4th edition, 2013)

• Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules
  with Gladys S.W. Lam (2011, An IIBA^® Sponsored Handbook).

Ron serves as Executive Editor of BRCommunity.com and its flagship publication, Business Rules Journal. He is a sought-after speaker at conferences world-wide. More than 50,000 people have heard him speak; many more have attended his seminars and read his books.

Ron has served as Chair of the annual International Business Rules & Decisions Forum conference since 1997., now part of the Building Business Capability (BBC) conference. He was a charter member of the Business Rules Group (BRG) in the 1980s, and an editor of its Business Motivation Model (BMM) standard and the Business Rules Manifesto. He is active in OMG standards development, with core involvement in SBVR.

Ron holds a BA from Rice University and an MS in information science from Illinois Institute of Technology. For more information about Mr. Ross, visit www.RonRoss.info, which hosts his blog. Tweets: @Ronald_G_Ross