Metrics in method engineering

Abstract

So many software development methods have been introduced in the last decade, that one can talk about a “methodology jungle”. To aid the method developers and evaluators in fighting their way through this jungle we propose a systematic approach for measuring properties of methods. We describe two sets of metrics, which measure the complexity of diagrammatic specification techniques on the one hand, and of complete systems development methods on the other hand. Proposed metrics provide a relatively fast and simple way to analyse the technique (or method) properties, and when accompanied with other selection criteria, can be used for estimating the cost of learning the technique and the relative complexity of a technique compared to others. To demonstrate the applicability of the metrics, we have applied them to 34 techniques and 15 methods.