Mykonos has business rules that implement Allergy-Sensitive Menus and other business rules that implement Menus Friendly to Lactose Intolerant.
Of course, there are many other dietary restrictions. Some people avoid beef for religious reasons; others avoid pork or shellfish. Some people shun all red meat; others avoid anything cooked in alcohol. Each of these dietary restrictions could have its own Mykonos policies and its own business rules to implement.
The general policy Dietary Restriction Menus results in many business rules to guide the creation of menus.
Directives
Both business policies and business rules aredirectives. A directive is an element of guidance under the control of the business. Consider again the business rule4 Vegetarian Appetizers. It is an element of guidance intended to shape the behavior of the Mykonos chefs (and others) designing menus. And it is under the control of the business. Mykonos has developed the business rule on its own, for its own reasons. Similarly, the business policy Vegetarian-Friendly Menus is a directive. It is an element of guidance intended not to shape the behavior of those creating menus but to be implemented in business rules that shape their behavior. And like4 Vegetarian Appetizersit is under the control of Mykonos. No outside organization is commanding Mykonos to offer vegetar- ian-friendly menus; instead Mykonos personnel have decided on their own to offer them.
Business policies also govern courses of action. As you will recall, the business policyDietary Restriction Menusrequires that menus at Mykonos restaurants cater to people with common dietary restrictions.Figure 6.19 shows that busi- ness policy governing the strategy Create Innovative Menus. In practice this means that innovation in menus is constrained by many different business rules—all the business rules that are derived fromDietary Restriction Menus.
The rules shown in Figure 6.18 are derived from this business policy, so Figure 6.19is a simpler way of showing the associations ofFigure 6.18. All direc- tives—business policies and business rules—can govern courses of action, but it is often simpler to focus on the business policies.
Directives and Desired Results
In Chapter 3, we also introduced desired results—the goals that an organization seeks to achieve and the objectives that quantify those goals. Sometimes a direc- tive supports the achievement of a goal. The most common situation of this kind of support is a structural rule defining a noun concept that is used in an objective.
An objective is too vague to measure if the noun concepts it uses are not precisely defined. Structural rules can help define those noun concepts.
2 Vegetarian Entrees:
operative business rule governs
Create Innovative Menus: strategy
Visible Meat and Fish:
operative business rule governs
FIGURE 6.18 Business rules govern strategies
Dietary Restriction Menus:
business policy governs Create Innovative Menus: strategy
FIGURE 6.19 Business policies govern strategies
170 CHAPTER 6 Business Rule Models
Let’s consider an example. The restaurant Nola has an objective 4 Positive Reviews, garnering four positive reviews in major periodicals in 2009. But what is a major periodical? CertainlyThe Washington Post is a major periodical. Is the much smaller weekly Washington City Paper a major periodical? And what exactly is a positive review? This objective needs support from some structural rules.
Major Periodical:It is necessary that a periodical is major if the periodical has a circulation and the circulation is at least 50,000.
Positive Starred Review: It is impossible that a review is positive if the review uses a five-star scale and the review has fewer than three stars.
Major Periodical supports the achievement of the objective 4 Positive Reviewsby providing some precision about determining whether a periodical is major.Positive Starred Reviewalso supports the achievement of4 Positive Reviews—at least for reviews that are based on a star metric. Other metrics are supported by other structural rules.Figure 6.20 shows the associations between the objective and the two rules.
Directives and Assessments
Also introduced in Chapter 3 were assessments: the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats faced by an organization. An assessment will often motivate the establishment of a directive. An organization recognizes a threat, and to counter that threat it creates a new business policy. For example, in Chap- ter 3, Cora Group recognized the threatIncreasing Public Interest in Ethnic Fare. This was a threat to the Cora restaurants; as the interest in ethnic food increases, Cora Group restaurants could lose customers to competitors that fea- ture Thai food, Ethiopian food, Bolivian food, and so on.
Since then Cora Group has been acquired by Mykonos, and Mykonos creates a new business policy,Ethnic Menu Items, to counter this threat. The new policy requires that menus feature some menu items inspired by ethnic cuisines.
Ethnic Menu Items:Menus must feature ethnic-inspired menu items.
Major Periodical:
structural business rule supports
achievement of
4 Positive Reviews:
objective
Positive Starred Review:
structural business rule supports
achievement of
FIGURE 6.20 Directives support achievement of desired results
Ethnic Menu Items is a reasonable policy, but it is not precise enough to be a business rule. From the policy it is not clear what it means for a menu item to be ethnic-inspired or how many menu items on a menu must be so inspired.
Ethnic Menu Itemsis the basis for several business rules that define and imple- ment this policy.
Figure 6.21shows themotivated byassociation between the business policy Ethnic Menu Itemsand the threatIncreasing Public Interest in Ethnic Fare.
Themotivated byassociation means that the directive is established because of the assessment—the assessment motivates the directive.
Figure 6.21shows a second business policy motivated byIncreasing Public Interest in Ethnic Fare. Mykonos leadership considers the ethnic fare threat to be as much image as reality. They say “all food is ethnic food”, certainly a bit of an exaggeration but no doubt one with some underlying truth. So they establish a second policy, one of illustrating the existing ethnic background of menu items in Mykonos menus. This business policy isExhibit Ethnic Sources.
For example, Nola’s menu already includes orecchiette chicken mole, a dish with roots in both the Apulia region of southern Italy and the Oaxaca region of Mexico. With an explanation of the ethnic connections of the dish on the Nola menu, customers who are attracted to ethnic fare will be attracted to Nola.
Directives can also be motivated by assessments that are not threats: by strate- gies, strengths, or weaknesses or even by other assessments that do not fit the SWOT framework. (If you recall from Chapter 3, SWOT analysis is a method of creating business strategy by identifying and analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a business.) For example, many executive chefs who lead Mykonos restaurants have local name recognition, at least among those who know food. This name recognition is clearly a Mykonos strength. Mykonos can build on that strength with another business policy about menu design, a pol- icy that the menu of a Mykonos restaurant should include the name of the execu- tive chef of the restaurant.Figure 6.22shows the trace association between the business policy Feature Chef Name in Menuand the strength Well-Known Chefs.
Ethnic Menu Items:
business policy motivated by
Increasing Public Interest in Ethnic Fare: threat
Exhibit Ethnic Sources:
business policy motivated by
FIGURE 6.21 Business policies motivated by a threat
172 CHAPTER 6 Business Rule Models
Tactics and Business Rules
Earlier in this chapter we explained that every operative business rule has an enforcement level. Some rules have an enforcement level of strict; those rules are strictly enforced. Other rules have enforcements levels ofoverrideorguide- lineor one of the other choices for an enforcement level.
The decision to apply a specific enforcement level to a rule is itself a tactic.
For example, Mykonos might decide that the business rule 2 Vegetarian Entreesis to be only a guideline, with chefs of the individual restaurants free to violate the rule without penalty.Figure 6.23 shows the association between the business rules and the tactic that specifies the enforcement level. The tactic Vegetarian Enforcement as Guidelinesdetermines the enforcement level of the business rule2 Vegetarian Entreesusing the associationaffects enforce- ment level of.
Figure 6.23 shows a second business rule, 4 Vegetarian Appetizers. The enforcement level of4 Vegetarian Appetizersis also set to guideline. In fact, the same tactic sets that enforcement level as well, also using anaffects enforce- ment level ofassociation.
Feature Chef Name in Menu: business policy
motivated by Well-Known Chefs:
strength
FIGURE 6.22 Business policy motivated by a strength
2 Vegetarian Entrees:
operative business rule
affects enforcement
level of Vegetarian Enforcement as Guidelines: tactic
4 Vegetarian Appetizers:
operative business rule
affects enforcement level of
FIGURE 6.23 Tactic sets enforcement level of business rules