A successful requirements workshop requires considerable pre-workshop effort. Such collaborative events, when woven throughout requirements analysis, tend to increase speed, promote mutual learning, and enhance the quality of the requirements themselves. Such patterns, with their roots in knowledge engineering, model business expert s thinking process and enable the rules to emerge. Actually, the question of larger purpose should be asked of any functional requirement. If the answer does not map to a business goal, objective or tactic, then the functional requirement is extraneous.
Business rules exist only to support the goals of the business.
If not, the rules are extraneous and may even be in conflict with business goals. Thus, mapping business rules to business goals is a key step in validation and promotes traceability back from business-rule requirements to the business goals. The business-rule cure Business rules are an ounce of prevention. Unless we get them, get them right and get them early, we are destined for problems in our projects and products. The project problems stemming from incomplete, erroneous or missing business rules include redefining requirements and re-testing results.