Towards a Process Modeling Language for Method Engineering Support

The increasing need for flexible software development methodologies has led to a new approach called method engineering. Method engineering aims at constructing new methodologies, more flexible and better adaptable to the situation of every software development project. Computer-aided method engineering (CAME) strives to support a wide range of activities involved in the engineering of a methodology that is well suited for an individual project situation. CAME environments take advantage of meta-modeling techniques that are rich in modeling the product aspect of methodologies but are severely weak in presenting, modeling and enacting process models. In this article, we have focused on the process support deficiency of CAME technology and therefore investigating the possibility of adopting suitable process modeling languages (PMLs). To this aim, we have introduced a set of criteria in the form of an evaluation framework to identify the main constituents of the PML technology satisfying the requirements of method engineering.