Learn English – big to small, and small to big approach names

conceptsingle-word-requeststerminology

In a book, I read:

Engineering is all about breaking down big problems into smaller ones and putting the
solutions for those problems back together.

My generalized interpretation of this text is that, sometimes we start from the big end, sometimes from the smaller ends, and then we move towards the other end.

Do we have terms to describe these approaches? Like saying "president is a X-ist" to denote that he starts from small problems to get to bigger ones till he solves the biggest problems.

I tried to bring forward some examples. But I failed. I hope you have understood.

Best Answer

The terms I would employ for this are top down:-

2: proceeding by breaking large general aspects (as of a problem) into smaller more detailed constituents : working from the general to the specific [Merriam-Webster]

and bottom up:-

from the lowest level of a hierarchy or process to the top: a bottom-up approach to corporate decision-making [World English Dictionary]

These terms are particularly common in the software trade.

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