Course of action to achieve a result (9)
I believe the answer is:
procedure
'course of action to achieve a result' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
This is the entire clue.
(Other definitions for procedure that I've seen before include "Established way of working" , "Course of action to achieve a result" , "way to get things done" , "subject of policy" , "Set sequence of steps to achieve a result" .)