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Testimonials

"This course gave me a good insight into the Business Rules methodology and was illustrated by practical examples. The book provides ongoing support as I translate the principles into practice."

Chas Cowie, Business Systems Analyst, DHL Global Forwarding

"Interactive. Listens. Provides real life examples."

Colin Woods, Technical Architect, Virgin Mobile

2-Day Seminar

Business Rules and Decision Analysis Masterclass

Register On-line:
15-16 November 2012, London

PDF FileClick Here To Download PDF Brochure

Click here for an in-house quote request or for further information regarding in-house training.

Overview
Do your processes always produce correct and consistent results? If not the problem probably lies with your business rules and decision logic. Business Analysts need the right techniques to fix these problems - process models, use cases, data models and other requirement techniques just don't do the job.

Business Rules are criteria used to judge the correctness of business behavior and to make operational business decisions. Many Business Analysts have not been exposed to the well-formed, in-depth body of best practices and standards developed over the past decade for this area. These techniques have proven invaluable in developing better business requirements. This seminar explains how business rules can be expressed, analyzed, validated, and managed as easily and as quickly as possible.

Decisions are choices made in day-to-day business operations. Such decisions are highly repetitive - they might be taking place hundreds or thousands of times per day, per hour, or even per minute. They are predictable and well-structured in terms of the outcomes they produce. New, highly pragmatic techniques have emerged in just the past several years for top-down decision analysis. The results are ultimately organized into decision tables, a set of technique all Business Analysts should know.

This hands-on workshop gives you essential tools that can help you achieve order-of-magnitude improvements in business capabilities. The result is simpler, smarter process models and a huge boost in business agility. Learn applied techniques from the recognized world leader in the field.

Learning Objectives

  • Conduct smarter, more effective business analysis
  • Identify and analyze decisions in business processes
  • Use the most effective techniques to harvest business rules
  • Write clear, business-friendly rule statements
  • Create robust decision tables
  • Validate business rules and decision logic with business people
  • Identify anomalies and correct them early
  • Perform concept analysis
  • Develop a structured business vocabulary (fact model)
  • Develop pragmatic visualizations
  • Establish comprehensive traceability for your business rules
  • Develop a successful rule management approach

Seminar and Workshop Outline

The why, what and who of business rules

  • Why business rules
  • What benefits you can achieve
  • What business rules are, and are not
  • Business rules vs. business processes
  • Kinds of business rules: definitional vs. behavioral
  • How the business should react to violations
  • Business rules and decisions
  • What skills you need to capture business rules effectively
  • What you need to know
Creating a business vocabulary (concept model)
  • Concept analysis: How to figure out what terms really mean
  • Guidelines for definitions –- do's and don'ts
  • The concept model: Developing a structured business vocabulary
  • Visualization
  • What to avoid
  • Steps: developing the concept model
  • Completion checklist for the concept model

Class Exercises

Eight steps to find and capture business rules

  • Capturing business rules from people’s heads
  • Capturing business rules from documents
  • Using facilitated sessions
  • Step-by-step approach
  • What about reverse-engineering business rules from code
  • Do’s and don’ts

Eight steps to express clear business rules

  • Business policies vs. practicable guidance vs. automated rules
  • The role of business vocabulary
  • Step-by-step approach
  • Clarity and completeness
  • Eliminating ambiguity
  • Addressing exceptions
  • Guidelines
  • What to avoid and why

Class Exercises

How to analyse and communicate business rules

  • Basic principles for rule analysis
  • Rule quality
  • Handling conflicts
  • Developing business reactions to violations
  • Simplification - When, why and for whom
  • How to validate business rules with business people and SMEs
  • Verification – Examples

Class Exercises

The structure of decisions

  • What decisions and decision logic are about
  • Understanding your problem space
  • About decision analysis
  • Independent sub-decisions
  • Diagramming decision structures(Q-Charts™)
  • Decision dependencies
  • Refining the questions
  • Decisions vs. processes

Eight steps to set-up decision tables

  • When to use decision tables
  • How to set up decision tables
  • Decision tables and business process models
  • What your decision tables should not do
  • Decision tables and business vocabulary
  • Best practices
  • Alternative formats
  • Completeness, subsumption and conflicts

Class Exercises

Business rule management

  • Business rules vs. requirements
  • Properties of business rules
  • Traceability of business rules
  • Retaining corporate memory
  • Business rule life cycle vs. software development life cycle

Audience

  • Business Analysts
  • Business Rule Analysts
  • Business Architects
  • Enterprise Architects
  • Systems Analysts
  • Decision Support
  • Change Management
  • Business Improvement Managers
  • IT Managers
  • IT Consultants
  • Project Managers

This workshop is relevant for all business and IT professionals seeking order-of-magnitude improvements in their company's processes.

Speaker Biographies

Ronald Ross

Ronald G. Ross serves as Executive Editor of BRCommunity and its flagship publication, Business Rules Journal. He is a sought-after speaker at conferences world-wide. He gives popular public seminars through AttainingEdge (www.AttainingEdge.com) and in Europe though IRM-UK (www.IRMUK.co.uk).

Mr. Ross is recognized internationally as the "father of business rules." He has served as Co-Chair of the annual Business Rules Forum Conference since 1997. He was a charter member of the Business Rules Group (BRG) in the 1980s, and an editor of the two landmark BRG papers, "The Business Motivation Model: Business Governance in a Volatile World" and the "Business Rules Manifesto". He is active in OMG standards development, with core involvement in SBVR.

Mr. Ross is Principal and Co-Founder of Business Rule Solutions, LLC. At BRS, Mr. Ross co-develops Proteus®, its landmark business analysis and rules methodology, including the popular RuleSpeak® (www.RuleSpeak.com). Mr. Ross is the author of nine professional books. His newest are: Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules with Gladys S.W. Lam (2011, An IIBA® Sponsored Handbook) and Business Rule Concepts (2009), a 3rd edition of his ever-popular, easy-to-read 1998 handbook.

Seminar Fee
£1,095 + VAT (£219) = £1,314

Hotel Venue and Accommodation
15-16 Novenber 2012
Venue: The DoubleTree Hilton
DoubleTree by Hilton London-West End
Southampton Row
WC1B 4BH London
Tel: +44 (0)20 7242 2828
Fax: +44 (0)20 7831 9170
Email: info@dtlondonwestend.com
http://www.crimsonhotels.com/doubletreelondon/

London Accommodation: IRM UK in association with JP Events Ltd has arranged special discounted rates at all venues and at other hotels nearby the venue. Please visit the JP Events website for further information.

Email: jane@jpetem.com Tel +44 (0)84 5680 1138 Fax +44 (0)84 5680 1139.

In-House Training
If you require a quote for running this course in-house, please contact us with the following details:

  • Subject matter and/or speaker required
  • Estimated number of delegates
  • Location (town, country)
  • Number of days required (if different from the public course)
  • Preferred date

Please contact:
Jeanette Hall
E-mail: jeanette.hall@irmuk.co.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8866 8366
Fax: +44 (0)1923 828 770

Speaker: Ronald Ross
Ronald Ross

Click here if you would like to receive a copy of all Ron Ross' articles that have appeared in our free monthly e-newsletter.  To subscribe to this e-newsletter click here.

Special Feature
All delegates will receive a copy of the just published book by Ron Ross and Gladys Lam Building Business Solutions.

Building Business Solutions
Ronald Ross and Gladys Lam

Building Business Solutions

 
Media Sponsors
BPTrends
Business Process Incubator

Business Analysis Series
Working with Business Processes: Discovery, Assessment, Mapping, Analysis and Design

Building and Using a Business Process Architecture

Mastering Business Analysis

Mastering the Requirements Process

Business Rules and Decision Analysis Masterclass


Multiple Seminar Booking Discount
Attend more than one of our seminars and you will be entitled to the following discounts:

  • 2nd course 10%
  • 3rd course 15%
  • 4th course 20%
  • 5th+ course 25%

Group Booking Discount
20% discount for 5 or more registrations made at the same time.

We regret that this offer cannot be used in conjunction with the Multiple Seminar Discount or any other discount.

Related Conferences

Business Process Management Conference Europe 2012 – co-located with the Enterprise Architecture Conference Europe 2012, 18-20 June, London

Business Analysis Conference Europe 2011 26-28 September, London

CDYou can purchase the Conference Slides on CD from the last conference - these include all of the tutorial and conference sessions for each event, for more information on these please click here.