Meta Data Repository Design Aided by Teleonic Process and Goal Analysis

Abstract

Building high quality Meta Data Repositories for medium and large private and governmental organizations is a very topical task with innumerable challenges. The MDR can not be considered simply as `yet another database´ in the organization, or they loose they main purpose and value. Examining the business processes and aims of the organization helps us to identify the place and role of the MDR in the organization. Terms, such as process modelling and process patterns come immediately into the picture. Apart from the many successful implementations and uses of business process models, the literature of possible pitfalls and ´bad practices´ has grown considerably too. Regarding the latter issue, prevention is undoubtedly the best solution and the application of a process-oriented approach based on the notion of goal rather than on the sequence of activities is suggested. The framework we examine here has a broad coverage of process patterns offering safeguards against many of the most common and painful pitfalls. This framework is called teleonics, and besides the concise description of its terms, it will also be demonstrated how well they fit one of the business process extensions of the Unified Modelling Language (UML). Several important design issues and some golden rules of the MDR design will demonstrate how teleonic considerations can help us keep projects on the right track.