Business Rules: Capturing the Most Elusive Information Asset - High-Performance Web Databases: Design, Development, and Deployment - page 115

than one guardian because different attributes have different guardians,
the choice of a relationship guardian becomes debatable.
It is extremely important to recognize that the business rule administra-
tor is not the true guardian of any business rules. Of course, in reality, the
business rule administrator may need to assume a guardianship role when
business guardians are not available or are not interested. Because the
business rule administrator's responsibility is to ensure that business
rules are submitted and approved by the appropriate business people, the
administrator is generally responsible for resolving conflicting or inconsis-
tent business rules in a politically acceptable and expedient manner. One
workable mechanism is the creation of a committee of high-level business
managers who meet periodically to resolve such issues.
Business Rule Maintenance
Generally, business rule maintenance is initiated by the business rule
guardian and performed by the business rule administrator. The business
rule guardian, knowing current business practices, is in the best position to
judge when an update to a business rule is appropriate. As data and busi-
ness rules apply to a shared data environment, it is likely that the business
guardian function for a rule will evolve to become the responsibility of a
team of business people, all of whom are stakeholders in the business rule.
When changes in business practice or policy trigger necessary changes to
the business rules, the administrator must again circulate rules to all
appropriate business functional areas and then control the maintenance to
each rule.
Business Rules and Vendor Packages
When an application package is chosen to support an information sys-
tem, business rules should still be captured and stored. In fact, business
rules should be captured by the enterprise before the decision to purchase
a vendor package is made. Once a vendor package has been chosen, the
enterprise should also document how the package influences the business
areas. When constructing these rules, extra caution should be taken to
avoid references to specific vendor package terms and concepts.
SELLING BUSINESS RULES
Selling the concept and usefulness of business rules to the business
community and the data processing staff is a slow process that must be cul-
tivated carefully and deliberately. The best selling style is through friendly
persuasion. Generally, the data administration manager leads this effort
and data administration staff members reinforce it. Data administration
should emphasize the value added to the organization when business rules
are incorporated into the development of information systems. Emphasis