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ceptual data model. Note that if the validators and users vary considerably in their
technical expertise, you may need more than one form for the CDM.
4.
Flexibility or simplicity? In terms of design, there is always a balancing act
between flexibility and simplicity. If you are leaning more towards flexibility, you
will most likely use some generic terms such as Event instead of Order or Person
instead of Employee . If your focus is more on simplicity, you will choose to use
more of the business language such as Order and Employee .
Here is a sample answer for each of these questions for a university's student reporting sys-
tem:
1. What is the application going to do?
This application is going to easily allow us to analyze key measurements concerning stu-
dents. Today, much of our student reporting is very department specific and therefore the
measurements and even meanings of key terms such as Student might vary across depart-
ment, leading to inconsistency issues among these key measurements. This new applica-
tion is designed to provide a broader, more enterprise view for student analysis.
2. “As is” or “to be”?
The application we are building is a brand-new system based upon several department-
specific systems that are no longer meeting our needs. Therefore, we need a “to be” brand-
new solution.
3. Is analytics a requirement?
Yes, we will need the ability to view key student metrics at different levels of detail such
as by month and year.
4. Who is the audience?
Mary is the validator. She is the business analyst who will need to confirm our under-
standing of the conceptual data modeling phase. Project management will use our results
going forward, as will all team members as an introduction into what the project is going
to do.
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