Step 1: Find The Nouns

Nouns are what dimensions and, by extension, master data are built from. Finding your nouns first is part of the "do MDM first" ethos.

Examine your ERD and look for persons, places, and things. In more complex businesses, this might also include concepts which are nouns but do not exist physically. A good example of this might be a sales region which might be a superset of address.

I still work with pencil and paper so, when I do this work, I actually print out the ERD and annotate my nouns. With the DVD database we have:

1. Films

2. Staff

3. Actor

4. Customer

5. Address

6. Store