The invention relates to an object-oriented technique for representing and accessing application data that is arranged in hierarchical relationships. In a first step classes are provided including a hierarchy base class with methods for accessing hierarchical relationships, at least one hierarchy subclass that is derived from the hierarchy base class, and at least one application class. In a next step objects are instantiated including at least one hierarchy object of the at least one hierarchy subclass and at least one application object of the at least one application class. In a final step, each application object is linked to at least one hierarchy object, and vice versa, to provide access to the application data.