Living and working in an IT world, I am often asked “What’s the difference between processes and functions, instructions and procedures?” These terms are often and incorrectly used interchangeably; however, each is actually a separate and distinct part of the ITIL Service Management framework. Therefore, I thought it would be beneficial and helpful to share some insight into how we understand these terms.
At the broadest level of the
service management order are the organization’s functions. A function is a group of individuals
within an organization who are responsible for performing a specific and
specialized type of work, and are accountable for its end results. A function
includes the people, systems, and specialized collective knowledge and skills
necessary to carry out the activities that help achieve the company’s
objectives.
At the next level in the
hierarchy are the processes. A process
will meet a specifically defined goal, delineates what needs to be done, and its results must be measurable. It
requires some sort of input or requirements, one or several activities of
execution, and provides a specific output or report. A good process will also
contain an effective method for self-improvement with feedback and corrective
actions. A process requires a set of procedures to be executed successfully.
Drilling further into the
hierarchical map are the procedures. A procedure
is a specific set of tasks that define how
and who will carry out the activities
required to complete a process. It defines the individual resources, and describes
the detailed step-by-step tasks that must be performed to meet one or more of the
pre-defined objectives of the overall process.
Lastly, work instructions are the final and most detailed components in the
service management framework. Work instructions provide the details, resources
and specific technology used to execute each task in the procedure.
In summary, a function is the team
responsible for a specialized type of work (e.g.
Network Operations Center), the process determines what needs to be done (e.g. Incident Management), the procedure
defines who and how the tasks must be performed (e.g. Network Service Order), and the work instructions provide the
details for executing each task (e.g.
Router Configuration Script).