X-META: A methodology for data warehouse design with metadata management

Date Warehousing is a powerful tool for supporting decision-making processes in modern corporations. However, developing a Data Warehouse (DW) is a complex and costly activity. It requires strategies, which should be specific to the characteristics and needs of the organization where it will be introduced. This work presents a DW development methodology suitable to organizational environments which need Data Warehousing support as a strategic requirement, but have to use the internal staff which has no expertise in DW development. Moreover, a strategy for creating and managing metadata in an integrated way to the DW development process is proposed, in order to capture the organizational knowledge and minimize the problems which can be caused by the mobility of employees within and between organizations.