Setting up a new office
A firm moves into a new office with 20 desks. One technician draws the whole plan first, then fills in the details.
Another starts by testing one cable, then one desk, then one room, and builds up from there. Both reach a working office. They chose different approaches.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Top-down | Start with the whole problem, then split it into smaller parts |
| Bottom-up | Start with small known parts, then join them into the whole |
| Modularisation | Building a solution from separate parts that each do one job |
| Module | One separate part that does one job |
| Approach | A way of going about a problem |
| Reuse | Using a part again in another place |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can choose between top-down, bottom-up and modularisation for a support problem.
Starter
Have a go
Starter
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Top-down: start with the whole
Top-down means you start with the whole problem and split it into parts. You split those parts again until each one is simple.
Use it when you can see the whole job and need a plan. It is how most projects start.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.