Object Role Modeling (ORM)

ORM is a well proven technique for conceptual modeling from rudamentary data elements and business rules.

In ORM an object is anything which can be stored as data.

The modeler does not need to differentiate entities from attributes - they are all objects to ORM.

See Asymetrix's Infomodeler for an example of ORM at work.

ORM has not gained wide acceptance and is see much less than Entity-Relationship Diagram approaches.