What is a Process? This discussion seems to be still ongoing, and I have my own take on this.
In Procedure vs. Process it is discussed from the angle of if it is a sequence or order of action or not sequence or order. Also Merriam-Webster dictionary is cited to say that a process is
a series of actions or operations conducing to an end ; especially : a continuous operation or treatment especially in manufacture
I fundamentally disagree with this definition. In my opinion the series of action is only one half of a process. The state is the other half. A process must always have a defined state. Either it is not started, it is finished or in the middle – in process. If it is in process, it needs to be further defined, what the detailed state is. So if a process is modeled in terms of actions, then the question is, which state do the individual actions have.
In the Blog Column 2 – links for 2009-02-02 we see the statement that refutes the difference between process and procedure as claimed by Procedure vs. Process . For my taste this is a little bit a too technical discussion.
I rather approach it from a little bit different angle. For me a busines process is the sum of all business objects and process objects that are needed to achieve a common busines goal, their state, their actions and the constraints between the actions and the state.
You might argue, that I define process by process – i.e. business process by process object. But they are different. Process objects are like workflows and have a rather small business goal , but a business process has a much broader scope. All process objects are small business processes, but not vice versa.
By such a definition I exclude such things like interactions with the system, because they do not have a state. So adding a sales order, saving it, adding another sales order and saving it is no business process by this definition, because it has not state and it does not achieve a common business goal. A business process would be to deliver goods which have been ordered by customer orders and bill them, and collect payments for them. This is a common business goal and the whole process has a state which is reflected in the state of it’s business objects, namely the customer order, the delivery, the invoice and the payment.