A Framework to Support the Implementation of Business Rules Management Solutions

Abstract

The implementation of software products is a time-consuming activity and needs a high level of expertise to be completed successfully. This is especially the case for software products related to an immature field, such as Business Rules Management (BRM) and Business Rules Management Solutions (BRMS). Support is essential to successfully guide the organisational implementation of a BRMS. Motivated by the diversity of organisational structures and their BRMS implementation contexts, we present the development of a situational-oriented BRMS implementation framework. We adopted the situational artefact construction technique to ensure that the framework can be applied in different situations. The BRMS implementation framework consists of four main elements: 1) the BRMS observation technique, 2) the BRMS construction process, 3) the BRMS metamodel, and 4) the BRMS metamodel support tool. For the construction of the BRMS implementation framework, this study utilises data of 13 BRMS implementation cases distributed over the financial and public sectors in the Netherlands. The BRMS implementation cases were gathered by utilising the BRMS observation technique. Being that these BRMS are already implemented and therefore successful, we utilise these successful cases for the creation of the BRMS implementation framework. 25 design problems are identified related towards implementing a BRMS. This resulted in the discovery of the 9 BRMS problem classes. The BRMS construction process identified 54 design factors, which were distributed over the 9 problem classes. The design factors were created into 37 different design situations, which specified each problem class towards the ideal configuration of the BRMS towards the specified situational factors. This all was created into method fragments, which resulted in methods specific for different situations. The elements identified utilising the BRMS observation technique, and the BRMS construction process resulted in the BRMS metamodel. Lastly, the BRMS metamodel is supported with the BRMS metamodel support tool which is created with the use of the model-driven development tool Eclipse Graphical Modeling Framework. The BRMS implementation framework and its elements (the BRMS observation technique, the BRMS construction process, the BRMS metamodel, and the BRMS metamodel support tool) are a stepping-stone towards further research on situational implementation methodology in the BRM domain.