Method Agnostic

The terminology that I use when describing someone who doesn't fall for all the religious BS involved in MethodologyFundamentalism? and instead has the ability to PickTheRightToolForTheJob based on the nature of the problem.

A LanguageAgnostic could be a special kind of MethodAgnostic.

No method fits every ProblemFrame, even YourFavouriteMethod?, even XP.

I used to be Method Agnostic. I've worked in dozens of different companies, each with their own methodology that is better than all the rest. Until I had to work on an XP/Agile project. Now I'm an 'AnythingButXPist'.

Seems like a MethodAgnostic is a FreeThinker?

A MethodAgnostic is one of the things a FreeThinker? should be (if they worked in software development). If you were convinced that the RationalUnifiedProcess, or ExtremeProgramming, or <your favourite method here> fits any and all development scenarios, then you would be neither.

This is really hard to do. As with CommunicationStyles?, LeadershipStyles? and many other fields: we may know that there are many techniques available that are differently applicable in differing circumstances, but when in a hurry, or under stress, we all tend to revert to one style. We will attempt to communicate with others in the way that gets through to us best; to lead others in the way that we would prefer to be led, and not to talor our actions according to the best techniques to use with the people we are trying to communicate with, or lead.

So with method. I like formalism, having been down the maths and physics route in my earlier education. It's a real effort for me to look at the development situation in hand and throw out the upside-down A's and reversed E's in favour of CRC cards, when that is appropriate. --KeithBraithwaite

See also PragmaticProgrammer, for a related, but broader notion.