BS ISO/IEC 24744:2007+A1:2010

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 work 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.

1.2 Audience

Since many classes in the SEMDM represent the endeavour domain (as opposed to the methodology domain), it might look like developers enacting the methodology would be direct users of the metamodel. This is not true. Classes in the SEMDM that model endeavour-level elements serve for the method engineer to establish the structure and behaviour of the endeavour domain, and are not used directly during enactment. Only methodology elements, i.e. classes and objects created by the method engineer from the metamodel, are used by developers at the endeavour level, thus supporting both the creation of “packaged” methodologies as well as tailored, project-specific methodologies.

Here the term “method engineer” refers collectively to either a person constructing a methodology on site for a particular purpose or a person creating a \'packaged\' methodology as a \'shrink-wrapped\' process product.