The BRG's second publication -- The Business Motivation Model ~ Business Governance in a Volatile World -- has a business focus, which we characterize as reflecting Zachman 'row 2.'  This paper deals with the 'motivation' cell of the Zachman Framework.  Motivation tells us 'why' an enterprise has the business rules it has put in place to govern what it does with its products and services, its people, its locations, and its timing. 

The latest version of the paper was published in September 2007, reflecting the small number of changes made to the Business Motivation Model during the OMG standardization work.  The BRG's Release 1.3 publication is available in PDF format.

The Model has shown remarkable stability since its initial publication.  In fact, the time lapse between Release 1.0 and Release 1.1 of the Business Motivation Model was just over four years.  The Preface to current Release identifies the relatively small number of updates and improvements to the Model that the Business Rules Group has made in the various Releases.  These changes were based on: 

• application of the Model in actual practice.
• suggestions from various conferences and presentations in Europe and North America.
• world-wide feedback via the BRG's website.
• intense work (starting in 2003) on Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR), a response to an RFP produced by the Object Management Group (OMG) entitled Business Semantics of Business Rules.

Perhaps the most notable changes came in Release 1.1 as (a) the new name for the Model itself, "The Business Motivation Model," and (b) the new title of this document, "The Business Motivation Model ~ Business Governance in a Volatile World."  The BRG had received compelling arguments that the original name of the document ("Organizing Business Plans ~ The Standard Model for Business Rule Motivation") did not accurately reflect the purpose and content of the Model. 

In September 2005, the OMG voted to accept the Business Motivation Model as the subject of a Request for Comment (RFC).  This meant that the OMG was willing to consider the Business Motivation Model as a specification to be adopted by the OMG, subject to comment from any interested parties.  Adoption as an OMG specification carries the intention that the Business Motivation Model would, in time, be submitted to the International Standards Organization (ISO) as a standard.

One of the OMG's conditions for RFC acceptance was an explicit statement about attributes that would be required to be included in compliant implementations of the Business Motivation Model.  The BRG document was updated to Release 1.2 to include that statement in Section 1.4 of the document.  No other changes were made in Release 1.3.  As the work got underway, we posted a PDF summarizing the status of that work.

In September 2007, work on the first version of the Standard was completed, with the acceptance of the BMM by the OMG Architecture Board at its Jacksonville meeting.  Assuming that all remaining OMG approval bodies (the DTC, the Business Committee, and the Board of Directors) give approval, the BMM Version 1.0 Specification will be published and available on the OMG website in December 2007.  And the evolution of the Standard continues, under the Charter of the BMM 1.1 Revision Task Force.