Recently there has been a profusion of object-oriented analysis and design methods coming from a variety of backgrounds. The aim of this paper is to aid the objective comparison of methods. A set of criteria for making explicit the differences and similarities between methods is proposed. The criteria are presented as a set of questions together with some preceding commentary.
Concepts deals with what makes a development method object-oriented.
The criteria for models consider what abstract system descriptions a method requires and the notations it proposes to capture those descriptions. The process criteria focus on mechanisms for developing the models. The pragmatic criteria concentrate on non-technical features. This paper should be of interest to potentail users of object-oriented methods as well as to the developers and advocates of these methods.