Single Source of Business Truth
Re-engineering knowledge work is the central problem of the knowledge economy. In recent work at Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and current work a major bank in Canada we used RuleSpeak® to create what I call a “single source of truth for operational business IP (intellectual property)”.
This is far more than a conceptual data model. Beyond structured business vocabulary its central feature is comprehensive rules. It may be like what some professionals call a “conceptual ontology” (as opposed to an operational ontology to be embedded in IT systems). But we would never use the term “ontology” in our work. Most business people and SMEs simply wouldn’t ‘get’ that.
The idea is that all audiences (or subcommunities) in an organization should work off a single trusted source of explicit know-how (business vocabulary and business rules), no matter what their specific responsibilities:
- producing training materials for line workers.
- making changes in operational policies.
- providing proof of compliance for auditors.
- creating new products.
- communicating with IT.
- Our primary audience is not IT. Yet our work is of sufficient precision that straightforward translation into an implementation form can basically be taken as a ‘given’.
- Our approach recognizes that people are the essential ingredient in business (as opposed to other kinds of knowledge problems). People can violate rules. For coordinating the work of people, direct support for behavioral rules, not just definitional or decision rules, is a must.
- Our work could not be undertaken without a structured natural language for business rules like RuleSpeak. The non-IT audiences do need rich business semantics, but they have no desire whatsoever to become semantic programmers. They simply would not commit if the work were conducted on that basis.
- No one today knows what the optimal syntax is for expressing all forms of business know-how in all circumstances. I suspect there isn’t one. That fact, plus the exponential increase in computer capability for processing natural language, indicates clearly that focusing on syntax is simply the wrong direction. RuleSpeak is based on, and was one of the reference languages for SBVR (Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules, on OMG standard), which supports a non-syntax approach. A language for ‘speaking’ with computers that is not a computer language – now that’s an idea whose time has definitely come!
Tags: behavioral rules, business know-how, business rules syntax, business semantics, business vocabulary, business vocabulary and knowledge economy, know-how, know-how management, know-how retention, knowledge economy, ontology, operational business IP, RuleSpeak, SBVR, semantic programming, Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules, single source of business truth, single-sourcing, tacit vs. explicit knowledge
Ronald G. Ross
Ron Ross, Principal and Co-Founder of Business Rules Solutions, LLC, is internationally acknowledged as the “father of business rules.” Recognizing early on the importance of independently managed business rules for business operations and architecture, he has pioneered innovative techniques and standards since the mid-1980s. He wrote the industry’s first book on business rules in 1994.
Meta Here. Meta There. Meta Everywhere? — Ron Ross on Business Rules
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[…] For discussion of operational business know-how, refer to my posts Single Source of Business Truth (http://www.brsolutions.com/2014/03/18/single-source-of-business-truth/) and Managing Know-How in the Knowledge Economy: What Role Do Business Rules Play? […]