Agreement on definition of 'methodology' and related terms

From your answer I gather that the editors of the PMBOK Guide do not know the difference between method and methodology either, and that the example that I quoted confirms the error in their thinking. Did I understand you correctly?

On the other side, and perhaps I was part of group of authors working on glossary of terms from some of the BOKs, I firmly beleive that we need to concentrate the definitions inside the group that have been designated for the organization to create the glossary of terms. In fact, after a BOK is created and publish for revision, it is open to the community for making any type of changes before the final publication.

Inside the PMBOK glossary of terms you can fnd the definition of most of them. That´s will be valid for people that agree on the PMBOK as the guide and the PMI as the organization to define and deliniate the discipline. But there are others organizations like IPMA, GPM or OCG (Prince2) and IEEE that you can follow and search for the definition too. What it is clear is that the PMBOK is a guide and it is not a method or methodology definied inside it. Any BOK you will find (EABOK, SWEBOK, BABOK, etc) is the same. If you adhere to the guide then you will create your own method/methodology (both words are not the same) as many of us have been done from years.

I started this discussion because I genuinely hoped to get clarity from the community. I do not have an agenda other than to just understand where I misunderstand.

I used examples of terms in need of common definitions within the PMI Community. If I were active in another community (e.g., the IPMA community), I would not expect them to lead me to the PMI publications for clarity of terms that they're using.

The following terms, which I used as as examples when I started this discussion, are not defined in either the glossary of the PMBOK Guide--Fifth Edition, or in the PMI Lexicon of Project Management Terms (Version 3):

Framework (used amongst PMI members in blogs and online postings, along with 'model', and a host of other collective terms.
Model (used to indicate just about anything collective within the ambit of project management).
Method (or methodology, or whatever, as we've seen in the above postings)
Discipline (used loosely to denote, inter alia, the project management profession)
Plan (used loosely in blogs and postings to denote project plan, or project management plan, or just a collective set of actions or tasks, or sometimes used as a collective for activities)

The following terms, included in my original list, are defined in one or both of the above-mentioned PMI publications:

Methodology (As I pointed up in an earlier response in this thread, this term is used to denote anything from a vague method to distilled methodology, and anything in between.)
Standard (Let me not go here, this is a minefield that helps 'methodology' look like a baby's first word.)
Process

The essence of my submission is that, in many instances, the terms are not used consistently (even in the PMBOK Guide), as I pointed out in this posting about Methodology.

Reading through the PMBOK Guide, here is another example of disparity:

The definition of Scope Management Plan
Glossary definition: A component of the project or program management plan that describes how the scope will be defined, developed monitored controlled, and verified.
Lexicon definition: A component of the project or program management plan that describes how the scope will be defined, developed monitored controlled, and validated.

The PMI states that since the launch of the Lexicon in 2012, '...the PMI standard development committees have been chartered to use the PMI Lexicon definitions without modification.' (Preface Version 3). And yet, the definition of Scope Management Plan, and us such the implications of the difference between verified and validated when managing projects in the real world, is critical.

Coming back to my original question: Would it not be advisable to have a repository of terms, such as those mentioned in this postings, to guide those of us at the bottom of the feeding chain, through this treacherous terrain?

"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 have participated inside the team of authors of various of the BOKs. (not only the PMBOK) and standards or extensions to the BOKs. What we did is defining the terms that are critical to the profession and critical to understand the BOK inside the BOK glossary of terms. Terms are critical to a profession. If you study epistemology as I have studied to create a method, methdology or discipline you will understand that terms are primitives (most of them) to define the core of the discipline. So, to have well defined terms is critical. About your question, you have to ask to the PMI, not to the project management community. Why? Because the PMI is the organization that is defining the discipline for those people who adhere to the PMI (other organizations are defined the discipline too).