Process, procedure, proceeding denote the series of actions, operations, or motions involved in the accomplishment of an end.
Process is particularly appropriate when progress from a definite beginning to a definite end is implied and something is thereby made, produced, or changed from one thing into another; the term usually suggests a division of the entire sequence of events into steps or stages.
The idiomatic phrase “in process ” means in the course of being made, produced, built, constructed, evolved, or attained.
Procedure stresses the method followed or the routine to be followed, whether in carrying through an industrial, a chemical, a mental, or other process, or in doing some specific thing (as conducting a meeting, a trial, a conference, or a business, or performing an experiment or an operation, or prosecuting an investigation or a search).
Proceeding, a much less definite term than the others of this group, applies not only to the sequence of events, actions, or operations directed toward the attainment of an end, but also to any one of such events, acts, or operations.
The term throws more stress on the individual or collective items than on their closely knit relation to each other or on the final end which they have in view, and often the term means little more than an instance, sometimes a course, of conduct or behavior.