Why We Build Meta Models

A meta model is simply a model - a picture - of what you intend to capture. It is 'meta' because it is not the captured information itself, but rather an illustration of the kinds of information that can be captured. We believe it is crucial to build a meta model at the start of each project we work on to illustrate the information that should be gathered and documented.

In order to store any artifacts in a repository, you must understand the kinds of artifacts you want to store, the attributes of the artifacts you want to store, and the possible relationships among the artifacts you want to store. Just as a database needs to have a schema, a meta model can be used as the conceptual schema for your project repository.