mission function
A category label for the primary, substantive activities that an organization exists to perform — its core business or operational work — as distinguished from the administrative, technical, and infrastructure activities (support functions) that exist only to enable or sustain that core work. In NIST SP 800-53 (AC-5) and its derivative publications, the contrast appears directly in the Separation of Duties control, which calls for "dividing mission functions and information system support functions among different individuals and/or roles." The practical import is that personnel who carry out an organization's primary operational work should be kept organizationally and functionally distinct from those who perform system support roles such as quality assurance, configuration management, network security, system management, assessments, and programming. The phrase is compositional — "mission" is a plain modifier meaning the organization's purpose or core business, and "function" carries its ordinary meaning — and no authority document assigns it a standalone technical definition distinct from that plain reading.
Framework senses
- §1 · attested_usage_reviewer_confirmed
- No definition is given in NIST SP 800-171r3. The term is attested in use at 1 citation in that document; a definition is pending curation.Increment 2: attested in 800-171r3 without a glossary definition.
- §1 · web_lookup_draft
- A category label for the primary, substantive activities that an organization exists to perform — its core business or operational work — as distinguished from the administrative, technical, and infrastructure activities (support functions) that exist only to enable or sustain that core work. In NIST SP 800-53 (AC-5) and its derivative publications, the contrast appears directly in the Separation of Duties control, which calls for "dividing mission functions and information system support functions among different individuals and/or roles." The practical import is that personnel who carry out an organization's primary operational work should be kept organizationally and functionally distinct from those who perform system support roles such as quality assurance, configuration management, network security, system management, assessments, and programming. The phrase is compositional — "mission" is a plain modifier meaning the organization's purpose or core business, and "function" carries its ordinary meaning — and no authority document assigns it a standalone technical definition distinct from that plain reading.DR-088 backfill from the noun definition column
- §1 · web_lookup_draft
- A category of organizational activity comprising the substantive, operational work that an organization exists to perform — its core business or programmatic responsibilities — as distinguished from the technical and administrative activities (such as system management, configuration management, or auditing) that support those operations. In NIST SP 800-53 and NIST SP 800-171, it appears explicitly in the separation of duties control, which calls for "dividing mission functions and support functions among different individuals or roles" to reduce the potential for abuse of authorized privileges and the risk of malevolent activity without collusion. The phrase is compositional rather than a defined term of art: its meaning is fully recoverable from its parts ("mission" = the organization's core purpose; "functions" = the activities that serve it), and it carries no specialized technical meaning beyond that ordinary composition.Drafted by the propose-term web lookup (PD-018); a curator confirms or replaces it.