Definition Process vs. Activity - What are the differences between a Process and an Activity?

J

JaneB

#21
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences?

So far, the answers that I found at Cove (and elsewhere) boil down to something like this:
(1 - Plan) Find the set of activities that looks like a possible useful process to you. Declare this set of activities a process.

(2 - Do) Try to live with this newly defined process for some time.

(3 - Study) Analyze whether this process was useful from the management viewpoint.

(4 - Act) If it was useful, institutionalize this process. Otherwise, remove debris (if any) and go start the next PDSA cycle.

NOTE: If you want more specific advice on how exactly the Plan and Study steps are conducted... well, tough luck! Go get an MBA or something! ;)
Which, of course, would be a totally fair way to answer my question.

Ah, I think you're beginning to get it. ;) A bit of a harsh summary, but there's something to be said for it. :lol:
 
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J

JaneB

#22
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences?

ISO's definition of process does feel very similar to this simplistic Input-Process-Output concept.

I wish it was a little bit more complex, though. For example, this simplistic definition is mute about temporal aspects of processes. I mean questions like these:
  • Is availability of input sufficient for actual processing of this input to begin?
  • If a process has multiple inputs, does it mean that actual processing of those inputs begins only when they all are available?
  • If a process has mutliple outputs, does it mean that they become available simultaneously?
  • ...and so on, and so forth...
In other words, I think one big part of my confusion is this: Does the ISO's "process approach" sorely lack such concepts as, for instance, process execution triggers? Or is this omission intentional? In the latter case, what was the intent and what are the answers on the "temporal questions" like the ones listed above?

I think these temporal aspects are quite important part of the picture if the concept of "process" is expected to be applied to situations more complex than trivial assembly line (i.e. a trivial chain of processes where inputs of each process do trigger execution of that process).

Or I am missing/overthinking something? (Which, of course, is totally possible.)
I don't at all dispute the importance of time and the various questions you've listed above - but how important they are will depend upon the particular organisation, the field it operates in and the particular process/es involved.

It's possible to have organisations with relatively simple and straightforward processes, in which these questions are not greatly important, or where the answers are pretty obvious. A real estate agent (realtor?) selling a house for example. A retail shop selling goods on consignment.

And then it's possible in other businesses to have tremendously complex interacting processes - the interactions and processes around, say, setting budgets in some internal government organisations spring to mind.

Remember ISO 9001 is a generic Standard, intended to apply to organisations in any field and of any size... their definitions are necessarily broad.

I wonder if you are not overthinking it a little too much?
 

Peter Fraser

Trusted Information Resource
#23
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences?

I don't at all dispute the importance of time and the various questions you've listed above - but how important they are will depend upon the particular organisation, the field it operates in and the particular process/es involved.

It's possible to have organisations with relatively simple and straightforward processes, in which these questions are not greatly important, or where the answers are pretty obvious. A real estate agent (realtor?) selling a house for example. A retail shop selling goods on consignment.

And then it's possible in other businesses to have tremendously complex interacting processes - the interactions and processes around, say, setting budgets in some internal government organisations spring to mind.

Remember ISO 9001 is a generic Standard, intended to apply to organisations in any field and of any size... their definitions are necessarily broad.

I wonder if you are not overthinking it a little too much?
In defence of Yarik, I think that he is assuming that the way the standard is written, and the terms it uses, should be applicable generically (as you suggest). But it is not! He is taking the "inputs - transformation - outputs" definition and trying to apply it to a range of types of process (such as the ones you gave as examples earlier) and it just doesn't make sense.

It (like so much of the standard) is based on "continuous production line" thinking, and just doesn't work when you apply it to administrative or service processes. Yet many people try to make it fit, and end up with their staff allegedly being "transformed" the first time they answer an enquiry, and a methodology being "transformed" the first time it is used. Do they not know what "transformed" means?! You need your staff and your methodologies in the same state for the next time the process is followed.

And please don't anyone say that we shouldn't take it so literally! That is what the definitions are for.

Yarik does got it! He realises that nothing happens in process terms until something triggers it / that the inputs required will be needed at different points in the process / even that the process may finish at different points and with different outcomes depending on the circumstances of each instance of the process.

No, the definition is flawed - there is no recognition of a "trigger" [this applies as much to a task (activity) as to the process itself (after all, this starts with its first activity)], and even more important there is no mention of an objective (this is one of the key points that David Hoyle made to me many years ago, and until then I too was stuck trying to make the "inputs - transformation - outputs" concept fit with every day business events).

All activities in business happen for a reason (well, most of them, and the others should be looked at seriously!). They can be either reactive or proactive, and will normally be part of a (planned) sequence of activities (a "process").

Your are right to say that how one person, or organisation, responds to a trigger event will depend on the type of business, the capability of the person and the particular situation to be addressed. Within a process, you are relying on competent people to make judgments on how to deal with the particular situation in each case.

Process management means making sure that i) the people are competent ii) they have the resources available for them to do their job and iii) they have guidelines to fall back on when they are not sure what to do next [There is more to it, but these are some of the basics]

Until the definition is changed, there will always be a gap between "quality" and "business" management.
 
S

Sam4Quality

#24
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences between a Process and an Activity

A lot has been said here over two simple terms as an "activity" and "process"! And pulled and stretched into ever more confusing aspects as activity and process implying the same meaning, and then quote that the definition is flawed!!

Jane, I greatly agree with you that I should have presented some even simpler examples in line with management systems to clarify the definitions of activity and process. I probably gave the silly 'quenching thirst' example to make the process vs activity distinction were clear. Sorry, it was pretty unscientific on my part.

Cut to Purchasing process:
Request for material from Dept/Plant/site (Input) --> Purchasing activities with resources and controls (Interacting/Interrelated activities) --> Purchased material (Output) === PROCESS

So, what you see above is a full grown process, as very generously defined by the standards. Fair. Lets go to Purchasing activities:
- Prepare RFQ
- Send to Supplier
- Receive Quotation
- Review Quotation
- Prepare P.O.
- Send P.O.
- Receive Material to Store (This is a "sub-process")

What do you call the above tasks? Processes? Do they have inputs and outputs? Maybe. But, what are these, leaving aside the in and out? Aren't these supposed to be called tasks, activities by definition? I believe so. Strongly. Are they interacting/interrelated? Definitely yes.

Painting Process (part of our manufacturing process):
Request from Coil shop (Input)--> Painting Activity with resources and controls (interrelated activities) -->Painted Sheet (Output)

Painting Activity:
This entire task is a work instruction. Simply DO job.
Place the sheet on the roller
Spray the sheet
Turn the sheet
Spray the sheet
Dry the sheet
Remove sheet

What would you want to call these steps? I call them activities/tasks.

Training Process:
Request for Training (Input) --> Training Activities (Interrelated/Interacting) ---> Conducted Training (Output)

List the training activities involved and you will find that the tasks that you are conducting are activities.

Hitting the head on the wall is an 'activity', but why you hit your head and what is the outcome of this, makes it something else (by definition)! Ofcourse, the activity was triggered by something, and there was an output to that activity. And that exactly what we call is a process! Don't we?

Activity (by definition) - is an act, a task, a doing. Period. No inputs, no outputs, no nothing!

Process (definition) - We all, by now, definitely know what a process is. Both, in general as well as by the standard. I prefer the standards definition because thats what the context is and thats what it should be.

I am not sure I have convinced anyone here, but I say all of the above purely for the purpose of definition, and this thread and forum section is about that. If you want to give a task an input and an output, it becomes a process, because that's the definition of process.

Originally Posted by Peter Fraser


"a sequence of related tasks triggered by an event and intended to achieve an objective. It uses resources and is subject to influences".


Originally Posted by Peter Fraser


No, the definition is flawed - there is no recognition of a "trigger" [this applies as much to a task (activity) as to the process itself (after all, this starts with its first activity)], and even more important there is no mention of an objective (this is one of the key points that David Hoyle made to me many years ago, and until then I too was stuck trying to make the "inputs - transformation - outputs" concept fit with every day business events).

Quite frankly, I don't see any standards defying difference here that makes it sound any better than the standards.
'triggered by an event' - input
'to achieve an objective' - output

The recognition of a "trigger" is the input, and the "objective" is the output, to make it generic and applicable to all scenarios.

The point is if my objective is to make profits by manufacturing a machine (the Big Process), there are many sub-processes involved with many 'events' and 'objectives' (applying your definition)! They are merely outputs (objectives?) to the many sub-processes involved within and that, my friend, is not my objective!

But yes, I like some parts of David Hoyle's presentation. Especially, the brief on 'transformation'.

Ciao. :cool:
 

Caster

An Early Cover
Trusted Information Resource
#25
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences between a Process and an Activity

Process vs activity can now be added to cal stickers and doc revs as reasons why normal people just hate ISO and see it as a cost with no value added.

The big thing I took from all my reading on processes is that the major problems can be found at the intersections of processes, so audit there for real value.

So rather than get stuck on it, why not define processes any way you want (heck why not just make departments = processes) and get on with auditing to find areas to improve.

The act of trying to define the processes should lead naturally to improving them, which I think was the intent in the first place.
 
L

LuisVillegas

#26
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences between a Process and an Activity

Hi, all.

I think Jo touched an important issue: Who is reading your process documentation? Is it the auditor, the CEO, the operative worker, the consultant, or the manager? Obviously, every human task can be called an "activity". So, if you follow the rule that "a process is a set of activities" then you will be able to define processes of all levels of detail. However, your CEO may not be interested in knowing the precise steps a worker follow in the production line. In contrast, the worker may want to know the precise steps to follow in order to deliver a high quality product or service.

Summarizing, first you need to define what level of detail you need to deliver with your process documentation. Once you know WHO will read the process documentation then you will need to ask yourself if the process (set of activities) that you are building match the perspective of your reader: Not too detailed, not too broad. As for an example, I have consulted a telecom company that had different levels of processes (zero through four). Each level was used for different purposes within the organization.

Finally, do not forget that there is a tool called Pyramidal Documental Structure. It assigns different names to different levels of information. All have the same objective: Transform inputs into value-added outputs. This tool starts at its top level with processes, then continues with: activities, procedures, methods (manuals), and formats and registers. The latter have the highest level of detail while processes have the lowest level of detail.

Combining the reader-perspective approach described above with the Pyramidal Documental Structure tool may eliminate any ambiguity around process and activity documentation.

Best regards,

Luis R. Villegas H.
Mexico.
 
Y

Yarik

#27
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences?

Hi Peter,

I agree with the most of what you were saying and appeciate that you've explained quite a few things that I failed to explain myself. :agree1:

However, I would like to challenge some of your statements, if you don't mind... (Red highlights in your quotes below are mine.)

I would suggest an alternative to the “traditional” definition of a process (“a set of interrelated or interacting activities which transforms inputs into outputs”), as:
"a sequence of related tasks triggered by an event and intended to achieve an objective. It uses resources and is subject to influences".
Somehow I feel very uneasy about the word "sequence" in your definition. I think that would unnecessarily limit applicability of the concept. So what's wrong with "a set of related tasks"?

Also I am taking an issue with singularity of a triggering event. IMHO, there is nothing wrong with allowing a process to have more than one trigger.

Finally why would you replace "activity" with a "task"??

(I was also very surprized by disappearance of inputs, outputs, and resources from your definition, but I'm going to address this concern below - where you reason about these things explicitly.)

It also avoids the risk that artificial “transformations” will be invented (as often happens) to fit the “traditional” definition, and that “inputs” such as "methodologies" and "templates" and even “staff” are allegedly “transformed”, when they will patently still exist (and be required) the next time the process is followed.
An interesting point! Frankly, I never thought about "transformations" in ISO's definition literally, but... now that you've mentioned it. I guess, you are right: the term "transformation" does seem to be quite inadequate. :agree1:


And finally: even if there are "inputs" into a process and "outputs" out of it (which I agree there will be, but it does not help to make them part of the definition, since they are characteristics or elements of a process - but equally of a task / action / activity), they do not all go in at the start of the process, or all come out at the end.
I respectfully disagree.

(You could also say that a trigger of a process is actually a trigger of some task/activity that belongs to the process. However, you do not exclude that trigger from the process definition. Why are you proposeing to treat inputs and outputs differently? ;))

My current understanding of what should or should not be a part of process definition is:

Anything that may be involved in process' interaction with other processes has to be in the process definition.
  • Triggering events that may originate outside of the process.
  • Inputs that may come from other process(es).
  • Outputs that may be used by other process(es).
  • etc.
As far as I understand, one of the key ideas of this whole "process approach" shebang is to use a process to "shield" the rest of the organization from most of the complexities/intricacies of all those activities/tasks that are encapsulated by the process. Whatever happens inside a process (specific activities/tasks and their interactions that involve triggers, inputs and outputs) may or may not directly affect other processes. But if something can - then that something should be a part of the process definition. Those "border crossing" inputs, triggers (events), and outputs is exactly what is involved into that pesky "interaction of processes" that ISO requires to understand and demonstrate.

I just don't see why would you want inputs/outputs excluded from the list of possible attributes of a process...


They go into and come out of the various tasks which make up the process. In the same way, resources may be required for specific tasks rather than for the entire process, and factors may influence individual tasks rather than the entire process.
IMHO, resources should not be excluded from the process definition either. Most of the things that ISO calls "resources" are not specific to any process (let alone a specific task/activity). Also more often than not all those resources are quite scarce. Therefore, whenever you look at organization from 10,000 ft and see only processes, I bet you'd want to see which processes are going to utilize your scarse resources and do that without looking inside of each process.

---

On a second thought... The main (if not the only) value provided by just mentioning inputs, outputs, and resources of each process is easier "menta/visual navigation" while analyzing/reviewing the organization's processes "from the outside". And obviously you cannot avoid looking inside the processes whenever you need to solve specific problems (or at least the vast majority of them). So if you were saying that this value is too small to bother... well, it would be difficult for me to argue with that because I have very little real experience to judge how big this value really is. At this point, I just feel that this value is significant.

But then I would also challenge the triggers-as-part-of-process-definition idea. ;) In other words, inputs/outputs/triggers/resources all look to have the same rights to exist as process attributes.


Best regards,
Yarik.
 
Y

Yarik

#28
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences?

I don't at all dispute the importance of time and the various questions you've listed above - but how important they are will depend upon the particular organisation, the field it operates in and the particular process/es involved.

...

Remember ISO 9001 is a generic Standard, intended to apply to organisations in any field and of any size... their definitions are necessarily broad.
That's all true. :yes: Trust me, I understand that very well. But... sometimes it feels that the Standard is rather ambiguous than broad/abstract. The line between broadness/abstraction and ambiguity may be very very thin, and I am not ready to articulate it on the spot. But I think this line exists, and I feel the Standard does cross it in some places.

I wonder if you are not overthinking it a little too much?
Maybe. In this particular case of process definition - still not sure. See one of the recent Peter's posts: he senses very well my concern about "insufficient broadness" of the definition of process.

:topic:

For example, I think that the Standard and all the accompanying guidelines somewhat overuse the word "sequence" when they talks about activities and processes. Like in "sequence and interaction" (as if "sequence" is either a semantic peer of "interaction" or the most important kind of "interaction"). Don't you think that this particular issue makes the Standard less broad than it should be? That is, still catered too much to manufacturing and assembly-line kind of thinking?

Of course, it could be just me: this particular issue definitely was one of the noticeable obstacles in my learning process...

Best regards,
Yarik.
 
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J

JaneB

#29
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences?

Yarik,

I tend to agree with you that trigger, input, output, resources can all be considered as attributes of a process. I also agree the ISO definition is very broad and very limited.

And it may well be to do with the bias toward the manufacturing which is still there (a bit less explicit than it used to be, but definitely still there).

As for sequence and interaction... no, I don't see the problem either (am I missing something?)

Perhaps it's because I came from a process-centred and focussed background, and was applying a 'process approach' to the Standard even with the now-thank-the-Lord-long-dead 1994 version (steeped in manufacturing).

It seems self-evident (to me) that one can't just take a set of activities and call them a 'process' without considering sequence: for example, reviewing an incoming request for a quotation obviously has to happen before one drafts a quote and the reviewing of quote for completeness naturally must take place before it is sent to the customer.

Similarly, interaction: the output from a quotes process may well be an input to another process, whether that's 'deliver the quoted job as per plan' in a consulting firm, say, or 'machine the widget to defined sizes and drawings & specs' in an engineering jobshop.

I actually think ISO made a giant step forward (away from procedures galore and sheer compliance to same) when it brought in the idea of processes... That doesn't mean I think the definitions or guidance on same is excellent from ISO. It isn't.
 
J

JaneB

#30
Re: Process vs. Activity - What are the differences between a Process and an Activity

Process vs activity can now be added to cal stickers and doc revs as reasons why normal people just hate ISO and see it as a cost with no value added.
I'd be sorry to see that. Processes are important, although many people find them hard to grasp. (And I'd never argue for departments = processes, ever!)

But I also think there's always value in debating topics when someone (in this particular case, Yarik) seeks to understand more.
 
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