Managing cognitive aspects of conceptual modeling and design

A key point in the CMD-problems is that the universe to be specified is not an example from a textbook but a piece of reality like a bank or an airport. In addition, the specification has to be somehow extracted from multiple, very informal and often hardly consistent descriptions provided by different people. Moreover, as the process of information system design is going on, and mutual understanding between the contributors is increasing, these partial descriptions may be changed so that the entire specification is permanently revised and corrected. On a whole, the design process goes along something like a spiral rather than a direct line, and thus the conceptual model is endlessly reengineered until the approaching deadline captures it as it is.