The evolving role of the business analyst

Traditionally, the business analyst has been responsible for analyzing the business needs of companies by identifying business problems and proposing solutions. With the advent of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), the business analyst has to think about issues such as IT services and how to define business logic as rules for easier and faster change cycles. Thus, a new position called the business rules analyst has emerged. This article will examine the role of this new star in the business world and will also help you understand how this role can help improve the return on investment (ROI) on your business applications.

Introduction

Consider this hypothetical business rule from a mortgage lender: For a $250,000 mortgage, the borrower's combined bank balance must be greater than $20,000 for last three months, the borrower's credit score must be greater than 650, and the borrower must not have an open credit of more than $35,000.

Effective management of such complex rules has always been a challenge for finance-related industries, such as insurance, banking, and mortgage-lending—or even investment institutions, for that matter. We all know that necessity is the mother of invention, so this immediate need to realize the value of managing business rules over the long term has given rise to a new role: the business rules analyst.

The IT profession has undergone significant change over the past decade. It was IT software developers who created and implemented enterprisewide applications and served as major contributors to innovation. But after the tech bubble burst in 2001, the strategic and business value of IT continued to evolve. IT professionals are once again being asked to deliver innovative systems to solve complex business problems. The architectural model established by SOA and further defined by the common principles of service orientation provides the potential to finally unite the business and automation domains of an enterprise. To accomplish this though, organizations must take the time to model and build services that encapsulate and express business logic in an accurate and extensible manner.

The creation of business services is therefore becoming the focal point of many contemporary SOA initiatives. Business services require the collaboration of business analysis and architecture expertise. Although the business rules analyst's role is fairly new, it has played a key role in this evolution. This role includes new approaches to business knowledge acquisition and its management, the use of business process management tools, and more sophisticated approaches to requirements management.

Business rules and business rules management (BRM) systems

One of the responsibilities of a business rules analyst is to extract and manage business rules, which can be defined as a representation of business logic that is pertinent to a specific business function in a specific industry. Not too long ago almost all business logic was hard-coded in the business application itself, which made it very difficult to make even minor changes. But with the advent of BRM, along with other object-oriented technologies, that pain has been eased.

So what is a BRM system? A BRM system is a complete set of software tools to create and manage business rules. A business rules engine (BRE), which helps separate the business rules from the application code, is at the core of any BRM system. Almost every BRM system (See Resources for a list of top companies in this field) allows its users to create the rules in English-like language. This in turn allows the business users to modify the rules frequently without the need of IT intervention and hence allows the applications to be more adaptable with the dynamic rules.

Every business has rules and almost always, without an exception, the business units want complete control over these rules. A BRM system makes it possible for business users to take that control back. See Resources to learn more about business rules and BRMS.

What is a business rules analyst? Is it really a new role?

The term business analyst is not new. How is this new role of the business rules analyst different from the role of a business analyst? A business analyst is responsible for analyzing the business needs of their clients to help identify business problems and propose solutions (see Resources for a link). A business rules analyst, however, can be thought of as a business analyst with a focus on business rules. The role's primary objective is to focus on separating rules from code.

You do not need a special degree or qualification to become a business rules analyst, but you should have experience as a business analyst. Analytical skills are important for a business rules analyst to discover, capture, and express business rules in simple English that is easily understandable by business peers as well as the IT people who are going to design the business application. It is also useful for a business rules analyst to have an understanding of object-oriented programming concepts. A business rules analyst doesn't necessarily need to have working experience as a software developer, but that experience certainly helps them appreciate and implement the reusability aspect of software development.

The skills needed for this new role are very similar to that of a general business analyst, but the focus and day-to-day responsibilities are quite different. For example, it would be the business analyst who facilitates sessions to capture business rules for a new business application, whereas the business rules analyst would ensure that the extracted rules reflect the business intent and will result in the desired business behavior. The business rules analyst also uses these sessions to understand how rules are enforced, how they are going to change, and how rule-related issues such as conflicting rules would be resolved.

There are four steps involved, as explained next.

1. Define the business application. Based on real market need, business owners decide to introduce a new product. The key players in this step are business owners and business analysts. After an in-depth feasibility study and quantitative analysis, they define the requirements for the new application. The majority of work at this step is done by the business analysts.
2. Discover rules. The requirements then come to the business rules analyst, who goes through the documents and extracts business rules from these requirements. The business rules analyst comes up with a list of rules in the form of structured natural-language statements that clearly, completely, and concisely express the rules to be implemented in the application. The business rules analyst must use his or her knowledge of process modeling and fact modeling to discover these rules. This step also involves validating the rules and developing scenarios for testing.
3. Create a framework for writing rules. In this application design and development step, the business rules analyst works very closely with rules architects and rules developers to help them design the application in a way that ensures that the rules reflect the business intent and that the application will result in the desired business behavior. The key players here are business rules analysts, rules architects, and rules developers. The architects design the framework for business rules analysts to write the rules in a simple, English-like language. This is the most important step, because the business rules analyst has to make sure there is no redundancy in the rules while also helping the rules architects make components that will be reusable in other similar applications. The business rules analyst also structures the rules properly based on a logical model and works with the rules architect to help design the application in the BRM system. The rules architect along with expert developers then create a rules application, known at this stage as rules templates. Rules templates are guiding models that business rules analysts use to create the actual rules.
4. Create and manage rules. The final step is to create or add the rules to the application. The business rules analyst uses a simple Web-based user interface to create rules for the first time. The business rules analyst uses the same interface to manage rules in the future. You might have noticed that the business analysts primarily interact with the management and business owners, whereas the business rules analysts must talk to all levels involved in developing the actual solution that the business rules are part of.

After the rules are created and tested, they are deployed and interfaced with other logical components of a system. A good business rules analyst elicits the invaluable knowledge from the business experts, digitizes it, and helps manage it in the most efficient manner possible.

"With great power comes great responsibility"

I know that's a quote from the "Spider-Man" movie, but the business rules analyst does have a very important set of responsibilities. The basic responsibilities of a business rules analyst is to come up with the list of rules in the form of structured natural-language statements that clearly and completely express the rules, facts, policies, and procedures to be implemented in the application.

A business rules analyst usually acts in a consulting capacity to a project. Although the responsibilities might vary from one organization to another, the business rules analyst generally takes on the following responsibilities:

1. Identify and organize business rules. After the business analysts and key business stakeholders have defined the requirements, it's the business rules analyst who has to start the process of identifying the rules and organizing them into logical groups. The fundamental goal of the business rules analyst is to get the project defined early by translating the initial high-level vision into something realistic. They also help to identify potential areas of automation. Because not all business logic qualifies as a business rule, the business rules analyst needs to be able to determine the difference.
2. Define groups (rulesets) to classify the rules for optimal understanding and easy searching. This is one of the most important and difficult responsibilities of a business rules analyst. Although it's not easy to define, an initial set of groups or rulesets greatly helps with classifying the identified rules into appropriate groups by functionality, business domain, or geographic parameters.
3. Ensure reusability of rules across the enterprise. There is a very good chance that some of the rules that are part of current application are needed in another project. It's the responsibility of the business rules analyst to be aware of any and all such business logic. This greatly reduces the total number of net new rules that need to be developed. It also make the rules architect happy, because it follows one of the basic principles of object-oriented concepts.
4. Ensure that the rules use consistent terminology and are readable. In a BRM system, the rules are created in English-like language, so it becomes very critical to follow consistent syntax and terminology in all applications and across the enterprise, which requires the creation of guides and reference manuals.
5. Promote awareness about the advantages of a business rules approach. I know it's hard to imagine, but not everyone in an organization will understand the advantages of business rules engines and a BRM system. It is the sole responsibility of the business rules analyst to explain and promote this in very clear terms.
6. Improve the ROI by thoughtful management of rules. In the end it's all about money, isn't it? The business rules analyst has to live and believe in the most basic principle of business: reduce costs to improve profits! And all the responsibilities listed above would eventually result in just that—lower costs and improved ROI.

The best business rules analysts are well-organized and patient and have great communication skills. They have the ability to dig through the complex requirements given to them by business analysts and stakeholders, and extract the right rules that would work optimally in a BRM system.

The following is a list of must-have abilities for a business rules analyst:

• Visualize and implement the bigger picture.
• Reduce overall costs and improve ROI.
• Provide more efficient use of resources by grouping rules into structured rulesets.
• Correctly identify whether any information in the requirements being delivered is inconsistent, incomplete, or even irrelevant.
• Compile the business information into clear and concise sets that are easily understood by peers.
• Facilitate the resolution of rule-related issues.
• Act as a communication broker; business rules analysts typically have very good connections within the business community and therefore are in a position to help development teams find the right people to work with.

So now that you know what it takes to be a business rules analyst, do you think it's in you to handle all the responsibilities? Are you the next Peter Parker for your company?

Summary

You should now have a complete understanding of what a business rules analyst does and why the role is so important to your organization. By having a position that controls the business rules and changes as well as bridges the communication between management and IT, your organization will see increased ROI and a more productive workforce.