The Business Reference Model (BRM) is a graphical, hierarchical representation of the federal government day-to-day business operations and activities. The BRM represents the first layer of the Federal Enterprise Architecture, which presents the business using a functionally driven approach.
The BRM model shown below in its entirety (created in System Architect), consists of a three-level hierarchy diagram, consisting of levels of objects.
▪Level 1: Business areas
▪Level 2: Lines of business
▪Level 3: Sub-functions
The definitions on each level contains three properties: name, description, and a one or three-digit ID, depending on hierarchy level. Also, depending on where they are in the hierarchy, some have reference properties that refer to a parent definition one level above or to a child definition one level below.
Below is a representation of the Financial Vehicles Business Area from the Business Reference Model, created in System Architect. As you can see, the model is a hierarchical representation, which is decomposed into lower sublevels.
The Mode of Delivery Business Area describes the mechanisms the government uses to achieve the purpose of government, or its services to citizens, which includes financial vehicles (Level 2 Business Area shown below).
The business area (Level 1)
The business areas of the BRM diagram represents a high-level view of the operations the Federal Government performs. There are six business areas (two of the business areas are part of the “mode of delivery business area” as explained below).
▪The Services for Citizens describes the mission and purpose of the United States government in terms of the services it provides both to and on behalf of the American citizen.
▪Mode of Delivery describes the mechanisms the government uses to achieve the purpose of government, or its Services to Citizens.
Financial Vehicles involve those monetary exchanges or transactions between Federal Government entities as well as between the federal government and non-federal entities as a means to accomplishing a federal goal or objective.
Government Service Delivery includes all modes of delivery in which government employees (or contracted employees) perform tasks that directly support the improvement of a Service for Citizen as defined in the BRM. This does not include the management of processes in which federal funds are distributed or in the Financial Vehicles Mode of Delivery).
▪Support Delivery of Services provides the critical policy, programmatic and managerial Foundation to support federal government operations.
▪Management of Government Resources refers to the back-office support activities that enable the government to operate effectively.
The line of business
The next level in the hierarchy diagram is the line of business, which consists of a total of 39 objects (19 are found in the Services for citizens Business area layer called external Line of Business). The remaining 20 internal lines of business describes the support the federal government must carry out to deliver the services for citizens.
Sub-function
The third level in the BRM hierarchy diagram is the sub function, which is the lowest level of granularity in the BRM. The BRM Version 2.0 contains 153 Sub-Functions. Each sub-function has a parent line of business (in this example, the Federal Grants (Non-State) sub‑function has Federal Financial Assistance as its parent) and an identification number.
Identification number
To help identify each component of the BRM hierarchy diagram, a one (Business Area Component) or three (line of business and subfunction) digit number is attached. The Business Area is identified by a single digit number, and the Line of Business and Sub-Function are by a three-digit identification number.
