The Open Process Handbook Initiative Authoring Guidelines (in the 'Specifics of an entry' section) provides some really good tips and principles to use when describing business process activities. The document's 'General method of creating entries' section also covers the different options for doing process decomposition which enforces development of an easy-to-complex hierarchy of processes (aids in communication) and reuse of process assets...albeit in the context of OPHI's Process Handbook (but they describe a general method that could just as well be used when developing processes in the context of the APQC's PCF, which I would like to see us use).
One goal I have for moving business process design forward is for all business process modelers to utilize some common standards when describing business processes. When it comes to business process modeling notation, my organization has adopted the ERP de-facto standard Event-driven Process Chain (EPC), which is fully implemented by it's developer, IDS-Scheer, in their business process management tool ARIS. EPC templates and shapes are also available in MS Visio 2003 Professional. But that only gives us a graphical notation to use...it doesn't set the standards for how we name the processes and elementary activities (aka functions or work steps) that get drawn in the tool. That is still a decision of the business process analysts and/or subject matter experts designing the processes.