In order to structure data, one must first gather data elements and establish the domain to which this data applies. This chapter deals with raw data information that comes from the users or other sources, and the techniques that can help us to build a comprehensive data collection. This collection will become our input for all further activities like data naming and grouping.

To be able to build a data collection, we will first identify the limits of the system. This will be followed by gathering documents in order to find significant data elements. The next step will be to conduct interviews with key users in order to refine the list of data elements. All these steps are described in this chapter.