Today we will have a discussion concerning determining the fields in your problem domain. I also discussed getting a group of people together who will have a stake in the solution. Once you have those brains in your meeting you ow need to see what kinds of information will be needed for the database. If you are a committee of one this technique can work for you, but I like having a lot of brains that I can pick. This takes off from a previous post.
Brainstorm
To get the fields that might be needed to solve the problem domain we will use a technique that I find useful. It’s called brainstorming. There are a few rules for the brainstorming session.
Here they are:
- Write all ideas down.
- No qualitative statements allowed from anyone
- Write down all of the words that people use
Write everything down
This is probably the most important. Write everything down even if it sounds odd. Sometimes people will say something that completely is outside of the problem domain, but still write it down. If you filter while brainstorming, then you may well cut off the spigot of ideas from the people. If you filter, they will filter and that is the antithesis of brainstorming. You want all the garbage, because there will be diamonds among it.
No qualitative statements allowed
Some people can’t be creative when they are being judged. No one is allowed to make any statements about the quality of another person’s input. That means even the facilitator. Everything gets written down. That are ways to remove ideas from the actual database, but this is not the point to do this. We are looking for a lot of ideas, a lot of fields.
Write down all of the words people use.
When an idea for a field is used, write down all of the words. Sometimes people will unconsciously categorize the words and therefore suggest table names. For example, Customer name, product name, contact name. These are all name fields but they will belong to different tables. These are the hidden gems of this process. That is what I am looking for.
Keep the pump primed.
When the people look a little fatigued, then it might be time for a break. Break out the soda, water, and snacks. Often times a break will get the creative juices flowing again. When there appears to be no more ideas left, then review the words with the team. Sometimes that will get the creative process going again. Once everyone seems to be in agreement that they are finished, accept that and move to the next stage, organizing the fields.
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