Conceptual Data Model
Purpose: Understand the business requirements and scope
Characteristics:
Audience: Business analysts, business users, executives
Detail Level: High-level, abstract—focuses on "what" not "how"
Focus Areas: Main entities and their relationships
Technology: None—completely technology-agnostic
Tools: Whiteboards, Lucidchart , Microsoft Visio, Balsamiq
What It Shows:
Major business entities (Customer, Order, Product)
Key relationships between them (Customer places Order)
Business rules and constraints
Scope of the system
💡 Example:
• Business Rule: A CUSTOMER can place many ORDERs
• Entity: CUSTOMER
• Entity: ORDER
• Relationship: places
Benefits:
Helps business users understand data scope
Identifies all required information
Creates agreement before technical work begins
Reusable across multiple projects
Fast to create (hours to days)
Limitations:
Too abstract for implementation
Missing technical details
No information about storage or performance
