contract – Conceptual Integrity

I just came up with a pretty good explanation of the difference between a service and a function, to clarify on a recent post. It kind of explains why it is difficult to reach an agreement, since people are discussing on different levels. So, watch this: Suppose that you’re a consultant, and you have a contract to perform a certain task, with certain deliverables and other agreements on what’s included. Then the service is the contract, and what you actually do is the function. This works for software services as well as for services of an enterprise that are comprised not only of software, but also of people and organizations.