Rules: Shaping Behavior and Knowledge

This book is about rules for groups and communities of people (including their data). The goal? Shaping behavior and communicating business knowledge, not simply mimicking human intelligence. It’s exactly what you need for governance, traceability, and the human touch so often missing in digital solutions. Here’s your guide to real-world rules in business and government.

About Rules
Rules are not actions and not processes. Nor are they instructions or commands. Rules are something else, something special. Confusion abounds about what rules are. What makes a statement special when you call it a rule? What restrictions does that place on how the statement is expressed? What special opportunities does it raise? These are crucial questions, some of the most fundamental you can ask. Time for a fresh look. Rules are almost certainly not what you think they are. And that lack of understanding is holding us back, especially as AI becomes more prominent.

By the author who wrote the book on business rules!
“For the longest time I've been encouraged by family and colleagues to write down everything I've learned about rules over a lifetime of hands-on consulting, research, and standards work. This book accurately distills much of what I’ve learned about rules in easy-to-understand form. No matter your professional orientation, you can benefit from it. We literally all have rules in common!” – Ron Ross

Who This Book Is For

• Policy Expert, Legislative Drafter, Rule Analyst, Decision Analyst
• Regulator, Compliance Officer, Legal Staff, Contract Drafter
• Business Analyst, Product Owner
• Data Quality/Governance Professional
• Business Process Professional
• System Analyst, Software Developer

You’ll find a treasure trove of practical ideas in this book you can apply in your daily responsibilities.

Being rule-based is the most basic characteristic of Western civilization. If you want to deeply understand rules, look no further. Here’s how to be rule-based about anything.

This Book Shows How To:

• Create better rules
• Insert sentiment, human discretion, and common sense into real-time business activity
• Express data constraints in natural language
• Distinguish rules vs requirements
• Communicate guidance clearly and completely and reduce ambiguity
• Interpret policy into practicable rules ready to deploy
• Bridge the gap between laws, regulations, and contracts and automation
• Address problems in data quality
• Disseminate knowledge in real time
• Improve your governance processes

What Reviewers Say
“… essential reading for anyone involved in business change; crucial for anyone undertaking business analysis.” – Adrian Reed
“… groundwork for an engineered way of communication between business experts and developers that allows knowledge to be shared at the right level.”– Antonio Catalá & Amir de la Torre
“… a must read for any governance professional.” – Bas van der Raadt
“… should be well-thumbed, annotated in the margins, and full of sticky notes. Get it, internalize it, act on it.” – Fred Simkin
“… engaging style. Recommended reading for legislative drafters. Remarkable the main textbooks don’t really deal with how rules work.” – Matthew Waddington
“… your go-to book for understanding rules and all the ways we can use them in the world around us.” – Jasmine Lee
“… how to move business rules from unclear and ill-considered diktats to thought-through and clear boundaries that promote freedom.” – Alex Hamilton
“… explains rules in clear, accessible language, along with their place in the landscape of business concept modeling and ontologies.” – Mike Bennett
“The combination of perspectives is absolutely outstanding.” – Markus Schacher