mission function
163564·updated Aug 30, 2026A 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.
Source
includes dividing mission functions and support functions among different individuals or roles, conducting system support functions with different individuals or roles (e.g., quality assurance,the sentence this term was read in
generalized from a web lookup of the quoted expression at proposal time Verdict: compositional.
- 03.01.04: Separation of Duties - CSF Tools
- AC-5: Separation Of Duties - CSF Tools
- 3.1.4: Separate the duties of individuals to reduce the risk of malevolent activity without collusion - CSF Tools
A definition generalized from search results is a draft to react to, not provenance. Confirm it against an authority document before this term is verified.
A web lookup ran when this term was proposed
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.
Advisory only. A term this product ships is defined by an authority document, not by a search result.
Proposed during multiword review of this document in the CKI mapping queue.
Attested in
Classifications
Entity Type
Sensitivity
Information Class
Variants
- plural
- mission functions
- possessive
- mission function's
- pluralpossessive
- mission functions'
Framework definitions
- §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.