Cover Your Assets

This smell arises when a development team adopt document-driven software processes where authors of the documents take a safer course to avoid making a mistake. Such processes often produce less-than-useful requirements and specifications because the authors evade making important decisions.

Reference

W. Brown, R. Malveau, H. McCormick, T. Mowbray, “AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis”. John Wiley & Sons, 1998.