Identify information that is, or could be, regarded as important to the company for which the database is being designed. For example, if you have a database design for a production environment, then information that would be important to this company might be total production per day, total production by the department for a given period, or a comparison of production and sales from one month to the next. This information will be the basis for queries, forms, and reports in the development stage of your project. All of these items can be completed in a Word document format.

Create data schemas and data dependency diagrams for all entities (tables). Be sure that each entity (table) is in 3NF and identifies primary and foreign keys. These diagrams cannot be hand-written/drawn; use Word, PowerPoint, or MS Visio via the XenDesktop to accomplish this.