The Business Rule Approach represents a major paradigm shift in business-system design and development. Employing a business-driven approach, the use of business rules has been proven to enhance the effectiveness, flexibility, and efficiency of business systems. The technology is appropriate for any kind of organization, and is especially well suited for development in the rapidly expanding Web services industry.

Written by the world's leading expert in business rules theory and technology, Principles of the Business Rule Approach is appropriate for business and technical professionals, as well as academics. It serves as a concise introduction and tutorial, presenting understandable explanations and practical techniques.

This book explores the rationale behind business rules, as well as the many opportunities presented by this innovative new approach. It explains key business-rule concepts and offers experience-based best practices for expressing business rules. In addition, the book looks at the role of business rules within the context of a wider trend towards model-based development and offers an accessible introduction to the underlying theory of business rules and notation.

Topics covered include

• How the Business Rule Approach is changing the face of business and opening new areas of opportunity

• The direct impact of business rules on IT projects

• Organizing basic business knowledge

• Understanding business structure and processes

• Working successfully with BRS RuleSpeak,TM including rule categories and sentence patterns for rule statements

• Expressing business logic using decision tables

• An in-depth look at fact models

• Theoretical foundations, including formal constraints and predicates

Numerous appendixes address specific topics in business rule technology, such as the Pattern-R approach and notation, evaluating the truth value of a rule, IF...THEN syntax, and more.

Knowledge of the emerging Business Rule Approach is critical for all who are at the leading edge of business system development. Principles of the Business Rule Approach is the authoritative guide and an essential resource.