ProcessVersusProcedure

What's the distinction between a process and a procedure? How important is the distinction?

Lately, I have been bombarded with people talking about "process." As I scratch their terminology a little, it seems like these people are describing a "procedure" to me. The simple distinction I see is that a process must adapt to a changing environment if it is to produce the intended result.

A procedure requires little, if any, adaptation to produce its intended result. For instance, you can easily create a procedure to automate the quadratic equation. It's well documented and proven to produce the intended result.

But automating a process, such as a chemical reaction, is many orders of magnitude more difficult. Like the quadratic equation, effective automation depends on a thorough understanding of a manual process that produces the intended chemical result. And the process to automate the process will need to discover and adapt to the chemical adaptations that aren't well defined in the manual process.

For me, process automation requires automating the execution of procedures and adapting to their outputs.

Please share with me whether you think a distinction between these two terms is important.

SteveSmith 2005.08.20

I'd first like to say something that processes and procedures have in common. They are things that people actually do.

Unfortunately, many people in our business do not seem to understand this simple fact. Instead, they use the word "process" for some words on paper, or on a screen. What they mean is "process description." Same for "procedure."

And, genrerally speaking, a process is generally much more detailed and complex than what someone has written on paper and calls "the process." - JerryWeinberg 2005.08.20

My colleague Ken Estes emailed me that there was a thread on this topic on SHAPE. Thank you, Ken.

For those of you who aren't SHAPE members, I suggest you become a member. Check out --

http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/shape.html

SteveSmith 2005.08.21

First, "process" is a word that is widely used the past ten or twelve years. It usually deals with an over-arching set of things that people are supposed to do. I have been in gatherings where the word was worshipped and in other gatherings where the word was cursed and damned.

In gatherings where "process" is damned, "procedures" are okay. Procedures describe more detail, step-by-step how to do something. Procedures are created and used by practitioners. Process, on the other hand, is created by theorists and used by no one.

I think both process and procedure can be good and useful. In the useful sense, process is more strategic while procedure is more tactical.

DwaynePhillips 21 August 2005

Dwayne, I appreciate you for sharing your insight on the distinciton between process and procedure with me. The insights have helped me, especially the notion that theorist worship the word "process." I had missed that. I will put that insight to use next week during a presentation I am giving.

SteveSmith 2005.08.21

Starting from the notion that a process or a procedure is something you do, then if something gets done, there's always a process and there's always a procedure. Statements like "you have no process" are always wrong. That's not to say the process is one you like, or can describe, or repeat. But there's always a process.

So, usually when theorists worship the word "process," they're really worshiping the phrase "(my) process (description)". The first and last words are silent. - JerryWeinberg 2005.08.21

Updated: Sunday, August 21, 2005