Anecdotal Business Policy Failure: Rx Externalization

Due to a glitch in their business rules implementation, his insurance company lost Ross as a happy customer.

 

 

If they're like other companies, they've got one set of people -- analysts --who make business decisions (but don't code) and another set -- programmers -- who code (but don't make decisions), and this leads to misunderstandings and inconsistencies. After the fact, only programmers can figure out what's implemented (but not without some effort). (Changing business decisions is left as an exercise.)

 

This gap in roles / skills is a big reason folks promote "externalizing" business models. By this they suggest closing the corresponding gap between specifying decisions and implementing them, by making the specification written / read by analysts executable (and manageable). This is a key reason for interest in business process and rule engines (and business process and rule management systems). It's not that programmers couldn't implement the decisions; it's that the analysts can't get their head around the resulting code, and that inevitably leads to business mistakes.