Relating evolving business rules to software design

Abstract

In order to remain useful, it is important for software to evolve according to the changes in its business environment. Business rules, which can be used to represent both user requirements and conditions to which the system should conform, are considered as the most volatile part in today's software applications. Their changes bring high impact on both the business processes and the software itself. In this paper, we present an approach that considers business rules as an integral part of a software system and its evolution. The approach transcends the areas of requirements specification and software design. We develop the Business Rule Model to capture and specify business rules, and the Link Model to relate business rules to the metamodel level of software design elements. The aim is to improve requirements traceability in software design, as well as minimizing the efforts of software changes due to the changes of business rules. The approach is demonstrated using examples from an industrial application.