Agreement on definition of 'methodology' and related terms

I think that is only one of the definitions of "methodology", just as "philosophy" defines a field of study, whereas "a philosophy" is a (hopefully) coherent set of ideas about something.

Similarly, we can have "methodology" and "a methodology" meaning different things.

Merriam-Webster also makes this distinction:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/methodology

In your response to Marius' question, you said that you see PRINCE2 is a Method, whereas in the blog post, you describe PRINCE2 as a Standard Methodology. Could you clarify the anomaly?

"At the end - I am not one of those who is stuck on terminologies - to me what is important is to understand then use what you prefer."

OK, so whether one says PMBOK or PMBOK Guide, Project Manager or Project Leader, Sponsor or Champion, it doesn't really matter what other people think you mean, as long as you know what you actually mean? ;-)

To be clear, though: I don't 'mind' either, as long as there is consistency and agreement to agree amongst the stakeholders, and at least sommmmmme alignment to something which is generally accepted too.

Here's why:

We worked with one organisation which used the term 'Project Manager' to denote what in regular Project Management would probably call a 'Regional Manager' in the organisation.

There was also another organisation which similarly would call a location where they did business a 'project'. So their head office, as well as their Kinshasa office, were 'projects'. However, in their case, a 'Project Manager' was not a Regional Manager; it had a different meaning.

The problem was, although they used this terminology consistently amongst themselves, it was impossible to proceed with any kind of training even vaguely aligned to international standards, because you'd have to have a glossary to translate their internal jargon. ("Remember, guys, operations means projects, projects means offices, project managers means... etc. Now, in reverse, if you read the texbooks,translate project manager to what we call a contract lead, and translate project to assignment," etc., etc. ad confuseam.)

The first organisation agreed to change their terminology. That meant their employees could then read books on Project Management, and it would be applicable to their (new) understanding of 'project', 'project manager', 'project management', and so on.

The second organisation insisted on continuing with the confusing internal standard which they were using internationally across all continents in their home-built 'Project Portal'. We walked away.

I find it particularly disappointing when I see software packages like enterprise resources planning (ERP) and integrated development environment (IDE) solutions use the word "project" to simply designate a container, a group of elements.