Developing multiple-agent systems is more than top-down vs. bottom-up

While "top-down" and "bottom-up" have traditionally been useful terms for characterizing the systems development process, that process is changing. Today, organizations are increasingly developing multiple-agent systems, which require a development process that goes well beyond top-down and bottom-up. They now need choices between "inside-out" and "outside-in" modes of development. Indeed, a system's success today will very likely depend on where on the inside-out/outside-in spectrum its development falls.