Validation and verification in domain-specific modeling method engineering: an integrated life-cycle view

Enterprise models have the potential to constitute a valuable asset for organizations, e.g., in terms of enabling a variety of analyses or by fostering cross-organizational communication. Therefore, while designing an enterprise modeling method one needs to ensure that created enterprise models are of good quality in terms of: (1)  syntactic validity, which entails that a model adheres to syntactic rules encoded in the underlying modeling language, (2) semantic validity, i.e., that the model should make sense in its context of use, and (3) pragmatic validity, i.e., that the model should effectively and efficiently serve the intended purpose. To ensure these three validity types, verification and validation (V &V) techniques need to be exploited while designing the enterprise modeling method, e.g., to check created enterprise models against syntactic rules, or to ensure intra- and inter-model consistency. This paper targets the systematic embedding of V &V techniques into the engineering of (enterprise) domain-specific modeling methods (DSMMs). Specifically, after identifying and analyzing existing DSMM engineering approaches, we synthesize their elements (such as typical phases and steps) and enrich them with V &V techniques. This paper is an extension of our previous work and additionally contributes (1) a systematic analysis of a wider set of existing approaches to DSMM engineering, (2) an extended background that covers information on models, modeling languages and modeling methods, (3) additional details regarding selected validation and verification techniques for each phase, and finally (4) a road-map encompassing desiderata for further advances in V &V in domain-specific modeling method engineering, from the perspectives of practice, research and education.