Kathy Jordan thinks this is interesting:

Why Do We Care About Processes?

We cannot say why we care about processes without first defining what a process is. A process is the set of activities (repeated steps or tasks) that accomplishes some business function. In a perfect world, a process consists of the following components (as illustrated in Figure 1.1):

• input—that is, data, information, or materials that are used in the process
• the process steps to transform or otherwise manipulate the input
• some output—that is, a good or service that results from the process
• feedback in the form of monitoring ...