What New Process is all about
#002: Learn what New Process is all about and get to know the New Process Principles in more detail.
In this episode, I explain how New Process was created and what it is all about. We deep dive into the New Process Principles which are core to the New Process approach.
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Please note that the transcript was generated automatically and only slightly adjusted. It does not claim to be a perfect transcription.
Mirko: Welcome to the second episode of the New Process Podcast. In today’s episode, I’m going to answer the question what New Process is all about. So hopefully at the end of this episode, you will know. But before we dive into the content, let me give you an overview of what is coming up in today’s show. Before we really go into a New Process, I think it makes sense to introduce myself. So I’m going to tell you a little bit more about who I am and then afterwards I’ll explain how New Process was created. And then in the third part of this episode, we’re going to deep dive into the so-called New Process Principles. These are the underlying principles of New Process, and I’ll provide you with some examples to get a better understanding of New Process itself. And then finally, at the end of the session, I’m going to recap what we covered today to smoothly phase out of this episode.
Before we start to rethink processes, I think it might make sense to introduce myself to you. So I’m Mirko Kloppenburg, I’m 41 years old, currently. I live in Hamburg, Germany together with my wife and our two girls. I studied business information systems and later on, I added an MBA. Since 2001, I have been working for the Lufthansa Group in different process management position. So one of them was working as a process modeler. Sitting together with the employees, asking questions until I really understood what they were doing and then mapping the processes in a system. That was quite interesting to talk to the people and ask stupid questions all the time.
And then I was also working as a project manager for the operations, as well as the rollout of a so-called integrated process-oriented management system. A system which we use to map our processes and to demonstrate compliance to different authorities, for example, And after rolling out that system, that has always been the question what to do with the same processes at different locations.
And we started to research on standardization methodologies together with the University of Bamberg. After implementing standardized process, it has always been the question: What do we tell the people now how to really manage their processes? And that’s where we started to develop again, in a cooperation with University of Bamberg a role concept, which – for example – defines the role of the process owner and the process architect.
And this is now also basis of the New Process Role Concept. We’ll talk about it in one of the upcoming episodes as well. In the end, I was heading the team for Methods and Tools in the Center of Excellence for Process Excellence. I was leading a team of 15 process architects to define the process of process management for the Lufthansa Group, and to provide a tool to the group and make sure that this is used to manage and improve processes within the whole Lufthansa Group.
Unfortunately, in April 2000, COVID hit us really hard and we all had to go to a short time work and that’s where I started to think about New Process and that’s where I started NewProcessLab.com as a platform to share know-how and rethink processes.
And finally, since March 2022, I’m now all in with New Process. So doing think tanks, workshops, trainings, consulting as well as this podcast here. And hopefully the podcast will a little bit inspire you to rethink your own process because this is always important for me to create inspiring experiences.
Whatever I do, I try to make it an inspiring experience for all the participants. And maybe the session will also be a little bit inspiration for you as well. Now, let me tell you more about how New Process was created. So looking back, for more than 15 years “higher, faster, further” has always been my target. Fighting for budgets, making sure that we have the FTEs to optimize processes, get better, better, faster, faster, and so on.
But in the end, I got the feeling that I personally cannot continue like this. Always looking on the numbers, always higher, faster, further, and for me, it definitely was time to rethink processes and to focus on the people again.
And so as a symbiosis of process management on the one hand side and new work on the other side, the term New Process was created and instead of higher, faster, further New Processes is heading for more genuine, deeper, more sustainable processes here. I’m really proud to copy the statement from Michael Trautmann who is the co-host of the “On the way to new work” podcast. He defined “more genuine, deeper, more sustainable” as the new “higher, faster, further” and I really fell in love with this statement from the moment on, I heard about that. And so this is why I started to think about New Process and, as I already said, it’s a combination of new work on the one hand side and process management on the other side.
So taking from the new work world, all this human centricity topics, like purpose, trust, transparency, diversity on the one hand side as well things like making all the events an experience for the participants, thinking about how to design workshops, trainings, and team buildings and so on to really inspire the people and also taking these influencer tools like community building, content creation, social media, podcasts, and videos. All these are for me, new work elements. And I tried to combine them with process management on the other side. So process management for me is a holistic transformation approach. And I’ll tell you more about that in the next episode, how this approach really works.
I’m also trying to add BPM governance aspects, like a BPM process with role concept and so on. As well as all the BPM methods and tools we know already from the past. And this is also a short disclaimer, I would like to share with you. It’s not New Process versus Old Process. So all the tools and methods that we know from the pat are really important as basis for excellent processes and they should not be missing, but to get to the next level, from my point of view, it is absolutely necessary to shift to the human aspects.
Now, to explain that in more detail, let’s pick the example of process maturity. It really takes time to get more and more maturity for a process. So often people are not really aware that the process is there, but they start to document the process. Then they can think about how to manage the process, optimize, automate, and so on.
So whatever maturity model you take, all these steps cost a lot of time to get from one level to the other level. And the idea is that with the New Process approach, maybe in the beginning, you will need a little bit more time to focus on the employee and to get them on board, to involve them into all these activities.
But after a short time, this will lead to an exponential process and you can get even higher with a human centric and purposeful approach. Instead of the standard without New Processes. Thinking about the people. So that’s the idea. And as first platform, just to give you an example for the further development of New Process, I founded the NewProcessLab.com, which is basically a website as a platform to build a New Process community, to perform inspiring experiments like workshops and think tanks. And also this podcast is just an experiment. So let’s see how this will work out and finally to share experiences all, to fulfill the purpose, to inspire people, to rethink processes. So that’s the idea there, and I can always recommend to go there to check out NewProcessLab.com for other ideas on how to rethink process.
This is how it all started and where we are right now. And now I would like to deep dive into the so-called New Process Principles and provide you some examples. In the beginning, there were about three or four New Process Principles. And then we had several think tanks together with the community and we added more and more principals. And right now we have eight New Process Principles and they start from “inspiring people for excellent processes”. They go via “foster the development of the people working in the process” and they end more or less at the highest level to “give meaning to the process” as eights principle. And what I would like to do now is to introduce step-by-step principle by principle to you. To give you an example of what the New Process Principles are and how they can be applied let’s start with the first principle, which is called “inspire people for excellent processes”.
So enable people for process management. Therefore we have to implement the BPM basics, like having a tool in place to document processes, to have the common basis to talk about if you have mapped the processes. To establish a process of process management, as well as having a role concept on how to manage your processes, having roles defined like process owner, process architect, and so on.
These are, from my point of view, the BPM basics or fundamentals to be implemented. And then we, as the ones providing process management to an organization, or just operating process management for your specific business process, have to act as role models and apply this process to our own process as well.
Finally, to inspire people, one of the ideas there is to act like a process influencer. Work with all the methods, you know from the influencers out there. But I don’t want to deep dive into this now because this is worth a whole deep dive session. A podcast episode, specifically on how to be a process influencer.
Let’s jump to the next principle. The second one is “trust the people working in and on the process”. And if you listened to episode one of the podcast, you already heard my favorite example of the purchasing process. So the idea of this principle is to design processes that guarantee people the freedom to make independently.
Take all the approval steps out of the process, provide all the necessary information to the people so that they can make the decisions based on the process without asking for approval all the time. So that’s the idea of the New Process Principle.
The third New Process Principle is “to involve the people working in the process, into the work on the process”. Invite all the employees, the real experts who work on the process as well. Whenever you’re going to start an initiative, create transparency about what you’re going to do and then ask them to participate in the workshops. It’s not always possible to invite all employees into a specific workshop, like working in a process with more than a hundred employees.
It’s really hard to invite all of them into a workshop, but offer them different types of participation. So one will be to be live within the workshops like onsite or online. But that’s not the only option. Second option would also be to participate in these activities by providing feedback. So send the workshop results afterwards to the people or make them available on the intranet, whatever way really fits to your situation there.
And the third option is to just offer the possibility to follow what is going on. This is also some kind of participation and that helps to involve the people working in the process into the work on the process. The fourth principle is “fostered the development of the people in the process”. Really think about formats, to train the people, to enable them for process execution, and then provide them these formats.
Facilitate sharing of experience. Think about platforms to bring the people together, to discuss about the process, to get ideas on how to improve the process, to answer questions and so on. So just one example could be to offer specific trainings for your roles in the process, like all the business process on the one side or roles like the process owner, a process architect. This is also relevant to think about how to train process owners, how to train process architects and foster their development.
Then the fifth principle is “design cooperation in and on the process to meet people’s needs”. This is more or less the secret weapon, which I discovered a few years ago, and it works for production as well as for administration.
Therefore you have to look into three dimensions. Space, tools as well as communication flows. With regards to space, I have a closer look on to where are the people working, which are working together in a process like taking an administration process? Are they sitting together in one office?
Are they sharing desks together to make sure that the information really smoothly flows through the process from person to person or from role to role? If that’s not the case think about rearranging the office layout to improve cooperation of the people working in the process. Or the second dimension was regards to tools, check out which tools the people are using. How do they collaborate? What are they using there? For example, in a remote setup, are they using Microsoft teams or slack or whatever kind of tool to facilitate the cooperation of the people. And then the third dimension is communication flows. How often do the people meet to discuss about the process and so on? This is also one of the aspects to take into account to design corporation in and on the process to meet people’s needs.
Then the sixth principle is “encouraged diversity and inclusion through processes”. From my point of view, it’s really important to be sensitive to the uniqueness of the people and their needs and try to integrate that into the processes or into the process design. So be aware of different cultures of the people.
Just to give you one example there and see all these specialties as an enrichment for the process instead as a hurdle. So when I was doing all these standardization project in the past, often cultural differences or location specifics were some kind of hurdle for process standardization, but now I see it the other way round. For me, they are really enriching the process by integrating all the different best practices of the different locations into one process in the end.
And always keep in mind: Just because the people are speaking the same language, this does not really mean that they have the same cultures. So even working for different departments of a company at one location, there might be cultural differences based on the organizational units the people belong to.
Or people coming from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. It seems as they all speak German. That makes it easy to have workshops. But in the end there are so many cultural differences you have to take into account while holding workshops. So this is something which you can really use. To improve your processes by taking all these good ideas from the different locations, from the different cultures, from the different people into the process design and to build process diversity there just to give you an example for this is all about.
The seventh principle is “to disrupt established process”. And there, I’m not talking about destroying processes and talking about being courageous enough to question the status quo. Not to accept this has been done for 10 years and this will be done for the next 10 years. I really loved the statement. No, I hate it.
Be brave enough to radically redesign well established processes. So even if the status quo is already good. Feel free to question this status quo and think about how to innovate processes. Disrupt established processes. That’s the seventh principle, and this has to do a lot with innovation methods and so on.
And then the eighth principle is “give meaning to the process”. So really thinking about the why. Why do we have this process? And therefore, it’s always good to invite the people which are working in as well as on the process and do it together to work out why the process is there and why it is meaningful.
These activities can already create common sense on how the process looks like. I’m definitely going to deep dive into this topic in one of the upcoming episodes, because I could talk about that for hours. And I really love to talk about process purpose. So maybe that’s the next topic then coming up and that’s it.
You made it, these were all the eight New Process principles that we have right now, maybe in the future, they will be adjusted, updated, there might be other principles added, but this is what we have right now.
Let’s recap. First I told you a little bit about myself. So hopefully now you have a better feeling of who is talking to you. If not, feel free to ask questions. I’m definitely going to answer these questions in the future. Then I talked about how it all started and what New Process is. So it’s a symbiosis of new work on the one hand side and process management on the other side, and always keep in mind.
It’s important that it’s not New Process versus Old Process. You definitely need all these mature methods that we know from the past and then add human centricity on top of it to get to more genuine, deeper, more sustainable processes instead of higher, faster, further. So if you’d like to learn more about these principles and so on, then go to a NewProcessLab.com.
There, you will also find a toolbox with all the tools and methods you might need to rethink processes. And by the way, at the end of this episode, that will be a great tip. So stay with me until the end. And finally, I talked about the New Process Principles. So now, you know, the underlying principles of New Process approach.
And if you would like to recap all these principles in detail, then I recommend going to NewProcessLab.com. And the link is also in the show notes, but just go to NewProcessLab.com and there on the start page, right on the middle, you will find the listing of these eight principles, detailed descriptions, examples, and so on. So that’s on NewProcessLab.com.
And finally, I would like to give you an outlook onto what is coming up in the next episode. Now, after knowing what New Process is, the big question for me is how to bring New Process to life. And this is what I’m going to tell you in the next episode.
So feel free to continue with the next episode. But for now, thank you very much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this solo episode where I try to explain what New Process is all about. Maybe you can take some new inspirations with you to rethink your own process. Thank you. Bye, bye and I hope you’ll be back next time. I will definitely be. Bye, bye.
