The Business Rules Analyst Job Description

As businesses need to optimize their performance to compete in the cut-throat global market, the role of a business analyst which involves identifying the business needs of clients and stakeholders, and determining optimal solutions to business problems also involves understanding the rules that govern how businesses function.

Businesses that make decisions without proper rules in place to guide their decision-making are much more likely to miss achieving their goals. To avoid this, companies hire dedicated business rules analysts.

Let’s take a closer look at the role of a business rules analyst and what exactly business rules are.

What Are Business Rules?

According to IIBA,

A business rule is a specific, actionable, testable directive under the control of an organization, which supports a business policy. Business rules are derivable from business policies. A business policy on the other hand, is a non-actionable directive that supports a business goal.

Most business rules relate to access control issues, policies, and calculations. An example of a business rule could be a rule that states that only the CFO can approve general ledger entries. All well-defined business rules must meet certain formal criteria and qualities. Business rules should be atomic, stated explicitly, actively managed, documented independently, numbered, cohesive, and should guide the flow of the process. See Business Rules Analysis.

The Role Of A Business Rule Analyst

According to Business Rules Journal, one of the most trusted resources for business rule and decision engineering professionals, “The Business Rules Analyst is responsible for the execution of the business rule management process, and helps extract and write the business rules.”

Using their in-depth understanding of the business, business rule analysts serve as the bridge between the business and the technical arms of the business, making it easy for developers to understand business policies and ensure that all development decisions are aligned with the core policies of the business.

Besides their core responsibilities, business rule analysts are required to update business rules to reflect changes, manage risks that could interfere with the implementation of business rules, maintain traceability of rules, research existing business rules, ensure that business rules meet pre-defined quality criteria, establish a common vocabulary and ensure that everyone uses the same terminology, and more.

The first step for most business rule analysts is to identify and define sources of business rules. In the next step, business rule analysts formulate business rules and express them either using natural language or logical statements. Then, they classify the proposed rules and store them in a central repository from which they can be easily accessed.

When used to its fullest potential, the role of the business rule analyst can become central to keeping the business focused on its main objectives and how operations should be carried out.