True, if your software is well designed and modular then it's easy to contain necessary changes to a single subsystem. But a good design document would allow yo

True, if your software is well designed and modular then it's easy to contain necessary changes to a single subsystem. But a good design document would allow you just that - designate boundaries and interfaces between subsystems. I personally found out that writing an IDL (Protocol Buffers, Thrift or what have you) along your design document is very useful since it nicely bridges abstract concepts with actual code.