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Process versus Procedure

simon

The words process and procedure are often used interchangeably.

Interchangeable usage definitely means their general usage in communication is unreliable

I find having a distinction useful.
I offer it as a consideration for inclusion in the glossary when we get tov3 (Future version)

Process

A description of a transformation

Procedure

The localised†† description including: Roles/ required experience of participants, Capabilities/ knowledge and skills, Checkpoints and pass fail criteria, Actions in sequence and performance criteria, Tools used, Decision points and Decision criteria and Authorities/ Rights and Duties, Error conditions with means to detect and responses, Metrics and reporting frequencies and content and destination and acknowledgements and consequential actions, Context in which the procedure is valid and/or invalid- ALL as has been agreed‡ to implement a process in a context

‡‘agreement’ in some context will be “because I said so” - agreement isn’t universally democratic - although generally involvement consultation and having a say helps with motivation in situations where providing effort is discretionary

††Some (or all) of the components may be included within a process but all of them must be included within a procedure - either by inheritance from the process or by stipulation in the context to which they the procedure applies

ChrisB

My understanding is that procedures are the physical implementations of a process, and as such are components of the process. They are ‘how’ the process will be executed.

Is this in line with what you are suggesting?

simon

ChrisB
Yes 🙂

Sugar dissolves in tea: Process
Use a dry teaspoon to transfer sugar from bowl to cup: Procedure

ChrisB components of the process

I hesitate slightly with the phrase - I think I want to delete that as a construct because I think they’re not components (Which would say “∴ within”) but the implementation of (Which would say “identically equivalent to”)

2¾¢

ChrisB

simon Let’s consider another example:
Process: perform an actuarial valuation of a pension fund
Procedures: collect and verify the data in terms of membership, fund rules, investment, and risks, then perform and verify the fund valuation, then prepare a report with recommendations, then present it to fund owners.

Each of the procedures is complex in itself with very specific inputs, outputs, skills requirements, procedural rules and governing policies, etc..

So I agree that ‘components’ may not be quite the right word, but I think there is definitely a 1:many relationship which of course does not exclude 1:1.

simon

ChrisB
Ok that definitely brings in a dimension that I hadn’t given enough description of.

The boundaries between the two are definitely permeable. There is a vagueness to the liminal boundaries. There is a stylistic element to the crafting of both that can create lots of overlap.

Any guide to correctness should always place practical use as its first determinant IMHO

For another conversation; I think that building extensible libraries needs some discipline and will benefit from some principled insights (to give guide- and guard-rails)

I’m minded to posit that your example is a process containing sub processes.

Also I see no reason why a process or a procedure should not be defined in terms of lower level processes and procedures; that is to say a <maybe - I’m not sure of this one> process could contain procedures and procedures contain processes (That is definitely OK to my mind)

I hypothesise " an organisation can be defined as a hierarchy of processes with (upto) many to many links between them. the levels of the hierarchy are not uniform when comparing any two different legs.

I suggest the whole is sensibly modelled as a state transition diagram/ Complete Digraph (a Warnier Orr digraph? which supports sequence selection and iteration. Böhm and Jacopini proved in a 1966 paper SSI is sufficient to support ANY procedural description.) in a hierarchy the returning edge of a Complete Digraph would be the feedback required for control in any holistic governance scheme.

For any transform one could have a single artefact that includes all of the qualities to be a process and procedure but any transform that has a process will always have to have one or more procedures to render it implementable

ChrisB

I will think about the state transition approach. I can see it may be useful.

However, in my work in ‘process reengineering’ with such tools as Interfacing Technologies EPC product and their original Designer (with some useful process simulation tools) I looked at processes as explaining WHAT (including work/data flows, resources, decisions, etc.) while procedures gave the detail of HOW - the practical methods and nitty gritty details of how each step of the process should be implemented.

I imagine this could apply equally to an hierarchy of principles, policies, processes and procedures, or as per PAS 808:
Worldviews, principles and behaviours and
Ends, means and methods.

simon

Is perhaps the proposal to avoid both words absolutely

And then we will have words without baggage?

3¢



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