[
Date Prev][
Date Next][
Thread Prev][
Thread Next][
Date Index][
Thread Index]
[
List Home]
[epf-dev] Agile Business Rule Plugin
|
Hi,
A quick introduction of myself, I'm a Technical Director at ILOG Inc, Sunnyvale,
CA, and some years ago I created
the Professional Service delivery
methodology (Called ISIS) that is used
today within the company.
One of a major piece of ISIS is a methodology to develop application
using business rule. Recently I was in
contact with Ricardo as I would like to
contribute to EPF
by providing an agile Business Rule Development
methodology as an EPF plugin. So he told
me to write to this email list.
ILOG is using EPF since one year and half for
managing the content of ISIS. Today ILOG has accepted my proposition to
provide the
Agile Business Rule Development plugin to Eclipse foundation,
and is in agreement with Eclipse license agreement.
I can
share with you the current published version of this plugin if needed. It is based on epf1.2 and reuse-
extend elements of OpenUP.
I would
like to know what are the steps to deploy this plugin within epf dev
environment, as XP or Scrum did already. Most of
the content is already here and we can commit in your CVS before the end of
September, so that people can download it.
If you have questions, comments, or
needs for more information
please feel free to contact me.
Here is some details of the
content:
The Agile Business Rule Development plugin presents a
pragmatic approach for the development of a Business Rule Application
using
Rule Engine technology like ILOG JRules, Rule for .Net or other any other Rule
Engine on the market.
A rule set is a piece of software which is executed
by a rule engine. Integrated in a business application it implements a
sub
set of the business logic. This logic is externalized from the traditional code
and can change in the future, and be
maintained by business
analysts.
As any software component, a rule set follows the same
standard development patterns and methodology as other components.
But by
externalizing part of the business logic, the business owners are creating
flexible business policies which represent
competitive advantage and are
considered as real asset of the company. As important element of the
business decision,
the business rules need strong management processes and
tools to support their life cycle. An enterprise Business Rule
Management
System (BRMS) provides solutions to make this management
more efficient, both for developers and for the business users of
the
applications.
The Agile Business Rule Development methodology is
applying the Agile Alliance manifesto as developing a rule set enforces strongly
the Agile values:
• Individuals and interactions over processes and
tools - the rule discovery, analysis and validation force to have a strong
communication between developer and Subject Matter Expert. Processes are defined
as light as possible.
• Working software over comprehensive
documentation. The proposed rule set development done per iteration, with its
validation step shows to the business user and other stakeholders that a working
rule set has much business value than a rule description manual.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. The Subject Matter
Expert who is defining the business policies and the business rules is strongly
involved in the development process. He is the customer, collocated with the
development team.
• Responding to change over following a plan.
Business Rules are changing, quicker than standard software, this is one of the
big values of a BRMS, so the methodology to support the rule set development has
to define the activities, processes and work products to support those
changes.
The Agile Business Rule Development plug in addresses in more detail
the following goals:
• To separate rules as a manageable artifact using
discovery, analysis and authoring activities and work products
• To
trace rules during their full life cycle from requirement to deployment
• To link rules to business context and motivation
• To
develop the rule description using business term and high level rule language
• To prepare the logical data model for the rule engine (The concept of
Business Object Model in ILOG JRules)
• To prepare the Rule set
implementation and deployment as decision services
• To articulate the
rule governance processes
There are two strong concepts that will apply to
rule set development:
• The unforgiving honesty of working rules
• The effectiveness of people working together with goodwill (the
business user and the development team).
The Agile Business
Rule Development methodology details all the different activities to
develop a rule set, from rule discovery to rule set deployment and maintenance.
We can group the set of activities into five groups. Those groups will be used
to build an iterative approach to the development:
·
Rule Discovery
·
Rule Analysis
·
Rule Authoring
·
Rule Validation
·
Rule Deployment
The following diagram is
presenting how the five group of activities can be executed in a
process flow using back loops to support short iterations. The rule set
will cook following those cycles.

Figure 1 Rule
Set Development Life Cycle
Jerome Boyer 
Semiconductor Business Division -
Services Senior Director -
1195 West Fremont
Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94087-3832
USA
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future"
Neils Bohr
Mobile 650 642
6852 - Office 408 991 7195