3.5 Reasoning through Complex Systems
When they are presented with a complex system, in either analysis or synthesis, system thinkers use several techniques to reason their way through the system.
Top-down/Bottom-up Reasoning
Top-down/bottom-up refers to the direction in which you approach a system. Most of the development in this text is based on the top-down approach. You start from the goals of a system and proceed to concept and the high-level architecture. Then you develop the architecture in increasing detail until you reach the smallest entities of interest to you. This method follows the “left-hand side” of the systems engineering V model. [2]
An alternative is the bottom-up approach. Here, you think about the artifacts, capabilities, ...
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