scope:

This International Standard defines the Software Engineering Metamodel for Development Methodologies (SEMDM), which establishes a formal framework for the definition and extension of development methodologies for information-based domains (IBD), such as software, business or systems, including three major aspects: the process to follow, the products to use and generate, and the people and tools involved. This metamodel can serve as a formal basis for the definition and extension of any IBD development methodology and of any associated metamodel, and will be typically used by method engineers while undertaking such definition and extension tasks. The metamodel does not rely upon nor dictate any particular approach to IBD development and is, in fact, sufficiently generic to accommodate any specific approach such as object-orientation, agent-orientation, component-based development, etc. 1.1 Purpose This International Standard follows an approach that is minimalist in depth but very rich in width (encompassing domains that are seldom addressed by a single approach). It therefore includes only those higher-level concepts truly generic across a wide range of application areas and at a higher level of abstraction than other extant metamodels. The major aim of the SEMDM is to deliver a highly generic metamodel that does not unnecessarily constrain the resulting methodologies, while providing for the creation of rich and expressive instances. In order to achieve this objective, the SEMDM incorporates ideas from several metamodel approaches plus some results of recent research (see [1-7] for details). This will facilitate: - The communication between method engineers, and between method engineers and users of methodology (i.e. developers); - The assembly of methodologies from pre-existing repositories of method fragments; - The creation of methodology metamodels by extending the standard metamodel via the extension mechanisms provided to this effect; - The comparison and integration of methodologies and associated metamodels; and - The interoperability of modelling and methodology support tools. The relation of SEMDM to some existing methodologies and metamodels is illustrated in Annex B.