Business rules first. Processes follow.

Most organisations try to improve performance by first mapping the process, what people do today, tidying it up, then hoping behaviour and systems catch up.

Bright Lambs flips it.

We start with business rules: the clear, testable decisions your business needs to make aligned to strategy, risk, customer promises, and how you actually want to run the your business. Once the rules are solid, the process becomes the natural outcome, not a complex and meaningless diagram you have to justify.

These rules are not to slow you down but actually speed up the decision-making process. It stops people asking the same questions again and again and justifying it over and over.

Ultimately, it reduces decision fatigue. It’s like the atomic habit of laying out your gym clothes every night so you get up, put them on, and go to the gym in the morning without thinking. This replaces “Ask around, book a meeting, figure out who cares, then rewrite the email three times, spend hours discussing, answer ‘why wasn’t I consulted complaints, etc.”

What we mean by “business rules”

Business rules are the if/then logic behind work:

• who can approve what (and when)
• what “good” looks like (definitions, thresholds, tolerances)
• what must happen before something can progress (controls, checks, evidence)
• what exceptions are allowed — and how they’re handled

When rules are vague or tribal, you get the usual symptoms: workarounds, repeated data entry, inconsistent decisions, no decisions, slow approvals, and a lot of chasing and fire fighting.

Why clients like this approach

Getting rules right creates:

• Consistency. Decisions don’t depend on who shouts loudest
• Speed. Fewer loops, fewer reworks, clearer handovers
• Control. Auditability without bureaucracy, adherence to standards like SOX, ISO, etc.
• Automation readiness. Rules become workflows and automations in your ERP/PLM/CRM
• AI readiness. AI can assist when the logic and data are clean

We have defined an extensive set of business rules that remove decision fatigue and speed things up:

Engineering change management example

• If the change affects form/fit/function, compliance, or customer requirements → it follows the controlled path (impact assessment + the right cross-functional sign-offs).
• If it’s documentation-only with no downstream impact → it follows a lightweight path (still version-controlled and traceable, but no theatre).
• If it impacts released parts/BOM or manufacturing instructions → it must include an implementation rule (effective date/serial/batch) so production doesn’t get caught in limbo.

Result: engineers stop burning time on obvious decisions, approvals happen at the right level, and the system nudges everyone towards the right outcome by default.