A comparison of four process metamodels and the creation of a new generic standard

Software development processes and methodologies to date have frequently been described purely textually. However, more recently, a number of metamodels have been constructed to both underpin and begin to formalize these methodologies. We have critically examined four of these: the Object Management Group's Software Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM), the OPEN Process Framework (OPF), the OOSPICE metamodel for capability assessment and the LiveNet approach for computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW). Based on this analysis, a new, combined metamodel, named Standard Metamodel for Software Development Methodologies (SMSDM) has been constructed which supports not only process but also products and capability assessment in the contexts of both software development and CSCW. As a proof of concept we conclude with a partial example to show how the SMSDM metamodel (and by inference the other metamodels) are used in practice by creating a simple yet usable methodology.