Selectinga Methodology

These ideas taken from chapter 12 of "Software Systems - Planning & Design", available at http://www.cms.livjm.ac.uk/paulvickers/downloadables/CD3005/ch8-12.pdf -- (page 22-26 of the Acrobat document, page 106-110 printed)

Chapter 12 -- "What method?"

• 12.3. The PrincipleOfDispassionateMethodology -- "Don’t get your method advice from a method enthusiast. The best advice comes from people who care more about your problem than about their solution."
• 12.4. The PrincipleOfCloseFittingFrames? -- "The purpose of a problem frame is to give you a good grip on the problem. So the frame must define and constrain the problem very closely indeed."
• 12.5. The PrincipleOfFrameExploitation? -- "A method should exploit the stipulated characteristics of the principal parts of its problem frame."
• 12.6. The PrincipleOfDeferredInvention? -- "Invention should be delayed until description of what is already given has been completed."
• 12.7. The PrincipleOfBeneficentDifficulty -- "Difficulties, explicitly characterised and diagnosed, are the medium in which a method captures its central insights into a problem."

[These are pithy sound bites; see the paper itself for details.]