Thank you for this valuable insight, and for validation of what I've been preaching to project participants from all walks of life for a few years now...

-Often, the first step should be nothing more than a piece of paper and a flowchart ruler. Drawing up some symbolized objects and entities, with joins, and using this for discussion is far less expensive than starting a Cartesian project of misdirected development efforts and database design. Minutes as opposed to hours are expended, and consensus is achieved at each step of the iterative process, leaving an audit trail of who agreed to what, and when.