The perils of top-down design
Richard A. Zahniser · ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes · 1988
Classic top-down design, which defines the system as a set of subsets of progressively more detailed functions, is the primary technique used in defining software components during requirements definition. This early "design", enforced by two major standards, is frequently used to assign work to development teams, which sometimes has a DISASTROUS effect on the overall system development effort.