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Understanding Strategy as a Key Business Analysis Tool: It’s Not Business Process!

by Ronald G. Ross on May 8, 2012

John Matthias recently wrote this about our new book, Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules[1]:
“I especially liked the discussion about the mission and goals. I still see business process analysis in organizations I visit where the goals are not articulated well, and the results are not useful. (I’ve done it myself.) It’s [...]

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Business Agility vs. Agile in Software Development: Not Related!

by Ronald G. Ross on April 23, 2012

Business agility results when the IT aspect of change in business policies and business rules disappears into the plumbing.  All artificial (IT-based) production-freeze dates for deployment disappear and the software release cycle becomes irrelevant.  The only constraint is how long it takes business leads and Business Analysts to think through the change as thoroughly as [...]

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Winner of the BBC2011 Silly Rules Contest

by Ronald G. Ross on March 30, 2012

If offered a breath mint, you should never decline … It probably means something!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Acks Misty Allen

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How Business Processes and Behavioral Rules Relate: The Fundamental Insight of Business Rules

by Ronald G. Ross on February 29, 2012

In football, when a referee throws a flag, the results of the most recent transform (play) are undone. In effect, by enforcing a rule, the referee prevents or negates the new state (yardline and sometimes the down) and enforces some other state. That’s the way behavioral business rules[1] work. Speed through a school zone and [...]

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What Should Business Stakeholders and Business Analysts See (and Not See!) in a Business Process Model?

by Ronald G. Ross on February 27, 2012

I was recently asked the question above. It’s a good one. It arose in response to another post, “What is the best way to simplify business process models?”. See http://goo.gl/gWnO0 for a very brief, very dramatic case study.
Here’s my answer. Business people (and business analysts) should see only the core set of transforms (business tasks) [...]

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Want to Make Your Business Process Models Less Complex and More Approachable? There’s a Proven Solution!

by Ronald G. Ross on February 21, 2012

The best way to simplify business process models is to take the business rules out and address them separately.
Example: For a large pharmaceutical client, we reduced a complex 28pp model to just under 4 pages by doing that – nearly an order-of-magnitude reduction in size (and probably even more in terms of complexity). Everyone [...]

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‘Concept Model’ vs. ‘Fact Model’ … Where in the World are the Instances?

by Ronald G. Ross on February 16, 2012

In a dramatic development, the new release of SBVR (1.1) has replaced the term “fact type” with “verb concept”, and the term “fact model” with “concept model”, for all business-facing use.[1] Why the problems with “fact type” and “fact model”? Let me see if I can explain.
First some background: Since its inception in the [...]

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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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The ‘Process’ of Business Analysis is a Great Example of a Social Process

by Ronald G. Ross on November 29, 2011

In a recent post, Jonathan ‘Kupe’ Kupersmith said:
“In manufacturing following a process step by step is a good thing. In our world [business analysis] this is not the case.  Following an A to Z process for every project is a bad thing.  Every project is different.  Different people, different risks, different priorities, etc.  You need [...]

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Five Years and Counting and Still No Pizza – Count-Down of Silly Rules from the BBC2011 Contest – #14

by Ronald G. Ross on November 11, 2011

From Shreejit Nair: We moved to Omaha 5 years ago and started living in a suburb called Millard.  The city of Omaha does not consider our area within the city limits.  A local Pizza Hut franchise that is barely half a mile away will not deliver to us because we are outside the city limits.  [...]

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