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Great example of why you need to define the vocabulary used by business rules …

by Ronald G. Ross on December 14, 2012

Rule: Every product must be tested on animals. Clear? Maybe not. Better define that bit of vocabulary ’tested on animals’!

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Concept Migration … First You Have a Vocabulary Problem, Then You Have a Data Problem

by Ronald G. Ross on October 22, 2012

When one company acquires another, or two companies merge, there is inevitably much consternation over data migration. Indeed, it’s always a hard problem.
Underlying every data migration problem, however, is a concept migration problem. By ‘concept migration’, I really mean integration of business vocabularies. After all, business vocabulary comes before data.
Consider the case of two airlines merging [...]

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What are three most common responses in vocabulary and definition work?

by Ronald G. Ross on September 13, 2012

‘I’m not sure what that means.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I thought that was in scope.’

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From Alexander Gunjko’s presentation at the Sydney Building Business Capability (BBC) Conference – Sept. 10-11, 2012

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Words of Wisdom re: Business Rules Initiatives from the Sydney BBC Conference … See If You Agree

by Ronald G. Ross on September 13, 2012

From Matthew Cooper’s presentation at the Sydney Building Business Capability (BBC) Conference – Sept. 10-11, 2012 …

“No progress will be made until you achieve a common business vocabulary. You just have to have it.”
“Vocabulary, facts, rules. You can’t do them one at a time. You have to do them together, iteratively.”
“Writing business rules helps you [...]

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How Important is Basic Business Vocabulary? … A Short (True!) Story

by Ronald G. Ross on February 14, 2012

Guest Post
I was teaching a BA class, trying to convey the value of having a prototype. The class was divided into ‘developers’, the BA, and the ‘executive’. The developers were given a bag of duplos, multiple shapes and colors. The executive was given a bag with a completed duplo creation. The instructions were for the [...]

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How Business Process Models and Business Rules Relate … What State Are You In?

by Ronald G. Ross on December 11, 2011

Business Process Models: A completed transform often achieves a business milestone and a new state for some operational business thing(s). Example: claimant notified.
Fact Models: In fact models (structured business vocabularies) such states are represented by fact types, for example, claimant is notified (or claimant has been notified if you prefer). A fact model literally represents [...]

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Something Important All Business Analysts Owe to Business People … Probably Not Something You’d Expect?

by Ronald G. Ross on October 6, 2011

One of the first rules of business analysis should be never waste business people’s time. One of the fastest ways to waste their time is not knowing what they are talking about … literally … and do nothing about it. So you end up just wasting their time over and over again. Unacceptable.
Is there a [...]

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Just Organizational or Application Silos? … Worse, You Have Semantic Silos

by Ronald G. Ross on October 3, 2011

Difficulties in communicating within organizations are by no means limited to communications among business workers, Business Analysts, and IT professionals. In many organizations, business workers from different areas or departments often have trouble communicating, even with each other. The business workers seem to live in what we might call semantic silos (reinforced by legacy systems). 
A [...]

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Confession Time … I Fell into the Same Vocabulary Trap I Warn Everyone Else About

by Ronald G. Ross on August 30, 2011

I have been involved in a great on-going discussion on LinkedIn about data models. I posed the question: Is there any proven way to demonstrate data models are correct, complete, and stable with respect to the operational business and its needs? You might enjoy joining in: http://goo.gl/MsnXu
It was literally 25 messages into the discussion that [...]

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Laws of Commerical Semantics … by Curt Monash

by Ronald G. Ross on August 26, 2011

Ever suspect a high B.S. factor in the categories vendors use for their products? Wait, let me ask that differently: Has anyone not suspected a high B.S. factor in the categories vendors use for their products?
I came across some older posts by Curt Monash that formalize the rules of software category B.S. I invite you [...]

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