How to create a good Process Culture with Amelie Langenstein
#053 Let’s find out what a Process Culture is and how to develop a good Process Culture in your organization.
In this episode, I’m talking to Amelie Langenstein about Process Culture. Having just completed her master’s thesis on the subject, Amelie shares her in-depth knowledge with us. We explore what Process or BPM Culture is and what a model for it looks like.
Amelie also explains how to create a good Process Culture and we delve into the key values that have a positive impact on Process Culture. She highlights the most difficult challenges organizations face in developing a Process Culture and we dive deeper into the parallels with the New Process approach.
Today’s Guest:
Amelie Langenstein
Amelie just received her Master’s Degree in Data Science and Advanced Analytics from NOVA Information Management School in Lisbon.
She wrote her master’s thesis on the topic of Process Culture.
I got to know Amelie when I was interviewed by her to provide feedback on the Process Culture Model she developed — And I immediately thought that we have to share her learnings on the New Process Podcast.
You’ll learn:
- What Process — or BPM — Culture is
- What a Process Culture model looks like
- How Process Culture affects the success of BPM
- How to create a good Process Culture
- What key values positively influence Process Culture
- What the most difficult challenges in developing a Process Culture are
- What similarities exist with the New Process approach
Resources
- Amelie’s LinkedIn Profile
- Rosemann, M., & vom Brocke, J. (2015). The six core elements of business process management
- Youtube: First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy
- Alibabaei, A., Bandara, W., & Aghdasi, M. (2009). Means of achieving business process management success factors.
- Book: diagnosing and changing an organizational culture
- Amelie’s Master Thesis
- Process Culture Model
Get notified about new episodes:
Transcript
Please note that the transcript was generated automatically and only slightly adjusted. It does not claim to be a perfect transcription.
Mirko: 0:20
Yeah, welcome to episode 53 of the New Process Podcast. Today we’re going to deep dive into process culture. Therefore, I’m talking to Amelie Langenstein. Amelie just received her master’s degree in data science and advanced analytics from Nova Information Management School in Lisbon and, of course, she wrote her master master thesis on the topic of process culture. I got to know her when I was interviewed by her to provide feedback on the culture model she developed, and I immediately thought that we have to share her learnings on the New Process Podcast. So in this episode you will learn what a process or BPM culture is, how process culture influences the success of BPM and what to do to create a good process culture, a culture that contributes to the success of BPM. And, as I already said in the last episode, I’ll tell you how I nearly died because of process culture. So enjoy the interview with Amelie.
Mirko: 1:32
Yeah, welcome to the new process podcast, Amelie. It’s great to have you here to deep dive into the topic of BPM culture to learn more about this. So welcome, Amelie. and, as I said, we changed the structure a bit and we are going to start with my favorite question. So how would you describe your relationship to processes?
Amelie: 1:57
So I would say we are like good old friends. Processes helped me in difficult times to get back um on top of things and to maneuver my way through, yeah, difficult areas and um, I think it’s important to listen to them and in case you don’t, you might get in trouble. So I think use can be very helpful too.
Mirko: 2:24
Okay. When was the first time that you realized, wow, processes exist in a good or in a bad way. But when was the first time that you realized this is a process or processes are there?
Amelie: 2:35
I think it was in my first job that I had an intersection role between sales marketing and consulting in sales marketing and consulting.
Amelie: 2:42
So I had a lot of tasks that needed handovers and we communicated a lot just by walking in the other office and talking about that, something is done and then the other person starts working on it or communicated by email, and then, I don’t know, somebody dropped the word of process and I was like, yeah, this is all kind of a process and we also defined it like a process, but it was not common that they were modeled or documented in like in a process model, but just like in a word document, and this is how I was taught, um, my job. So I just received the list of every task I had to do and that was really helpful and I just thought this is what we would need for every area in the organization that every step is defined and what happens after each task is completed and how the handovers are defined. So I think that was the first time that I encountered the word process and I was like, yeah, this is the way we should think here to make it work yeah, that’s, that’s pretty cool.
Mirko: 3:47
And then fast forward. You decided to write your master thesis about the topic of bpm culture, just as the headline or the overview, and I’m sure you will tell us the exact headline of your master thesis later on. But can you briefly describe what bpm culture is and why it’s important, just from your perspective?
Amelie: 4:09
yeah. So bpm culture is a concept that was first discussed in the 90s, but in I think 2011 from pocket published the first model on BPM culture, and they define it as an organizational culture that fits with the BPM objectives. So in an optimal world, there should be an organizational culture that is represented by values that support the objectives of the BPM initiative. So this is the term BPM culture, and I think it is important because if the culture in an organization doesn’t fit with the objectives of the BPM initiatives, it is pretty likely that it will fail. So it is very important to consider what culture is present in the organization and to also take measures to either improve that culture or at least address the present culture to successfully implement BPM, because if you don’t consider the people that work on the processes, the people that work in the organization.
Mirko: 5:22
It is hard to have a long-term success as vpr okay, what the hell inspired you to write your master thesis on this topic?
Amelie: 5:33
um, yeah, so I I had this first glance at processes in my first job and I also juggled a lot with data, so, but mainly in excel, and I found that I had a lack of skills in that area. So I started the master degree in data science and on one side I learned quite a few things in programming. But, um, we also had one class in bpm and for me this was a more straightforward subject and something that was, um, yeah, more related to my interest in structuring work and finding a good and lean way to work. And the cultural aspect is something that came up in discussing the topic with my supervisor, where we talked about different subjects on critical success factors of BPM. And there is a lot of research on BPM success factors.
Amelie: 6:31
But recently there has been a lot of discussions on the impact of culture on BPM, but there’s not that much research on how to create that culture. So I thought it would be interesting to much research on how to create that culture. So I thought it would be interesting to find out more how to include the people, how to accompany them in these change processes related to BPM. And, yeah, so it kind of grew into a passion on that cultural topic and how did you approach this to develop your bpm culture model?
Mirko: 7:09
first, what was the the title of your master thesis, and then how did you proceed to develop your work?
Amelie: 7:17
okay, so the title of my work was the critical success factors of bPM, with a focus on the role of culture and context, and I first started diving into this culture topic of BPM. But during the research process I found that the context also plays a crucial role, which is in part also the culture, but also other aspects of the organization. So I therefore screen different models in the literature that propose models on critical success factors of BPM, and then I try to develop a model or propose a model that focuses on context and culture. And this model then was validated in expert interviews where I presented the model and then we just discussed and how far this can be of practical relevance and in how far the experts perceive the context and culture to be relevant for bpm success. And then I refined the model and added a few aspects okay, and you finally came up with what.
Mirko: 8:24
How does the model look like you evaluated?
Amelie: 8:28
So the model has actually two levels. So there’s one basic level that shows the main concepts of context and culture and what they are constituted of, and they are connected by the methods. So I propose that the methods used in bpm should be aligned with the context, that is, um in the, with the organizational context, and can therefore contribute to create a culture that supports bPM and overall this leads to BPM success. So, considering the context and having a BPM culture and methods that are aligned with the context, this all contributes to BPM success. So that’s the main model I proposed and then, in the second level, I presented a set of critical success factors that were first structured by context and BPM culture, and the contextual factors were structured by a set of key dimensions that are similar to the key elements of the six core elements of Rosemann and Verbrocke, who defined the main elements that should be considered in VPM to be successful, and I complemented them by a few other elements, and this is, for example, the organization. So, in terms of organization, it should consider which industry the organization is, in, which size the organization has, what kind of shareholder structure is present and how far is it in more international organization with different locations, or is it just in one country? Concerning the strategy, which corporate goals has the organization, which financial objectives and which BPM objectives, and so on.
Amelie: 10:34
So for each key dimension I added a set of contextual factors, and one thing I would like to highlight is the two elements of leadership and management. So I think there should be a distinction between these two aspects, because this is often used interchangeably in the literature. But leadership is about leading the people, having a vision and communicating that vision and guiding the people to accelerate their work, and management does more about the planning, governance and control, which is both important, but it should be distinguished. So I’m not going to tell all the contextual factors, but in general I say that there are key dimensions that have to be considered and I structure all these contextual factors by these key dimensions and I proposed that they all should be looked at to find the right BPM approach.
Amelie: 11:35
And concerning the BPM culture, I tried to define which is the optimal culture for BPM, and here I define four key values, which are openness, ownership, engagement and excellence. This is also based on a model that is already existing. The third value is defined by Schmiedler et al, but I adjusted the model and used these core values as key dimension for another set of cultural success sectors. So, concerning the openness to create openness in an organization is important for everything related to BPM, but also other transformations, transformational actions that involve change, and to create that openness it is, for example, important to have a failure culture where people openly report failures without being afraid of getting sanctions, to have a certain transparency in the organization, to have a certain transparency in your organization, to have employees have a trust in your organization, to be open for new things and also to enhance the readiness to change of people.
Amelie: 12:55
So, BPM usually involves change and one big issue is that there’s a lot of resistance to that change, because people in general face a lot of changes today, not only related to BPM, not only in the work environment, but also in the general life. So every action in an organization that imposes change on people can be threatening. So it’s really important to address this resistance to change and make people ready for it, which can be with either motivating them and coaching them just for their motivation, but also providing certain skills and training to be able to adapt, and for ownership. This is important, that people initiate this change. That is necessary because people working on the process are the ones that actually know what should be changed or what, what issues there are, what frictions in the process. So you need people to to take the responsibility to improve their own work area or task area and you can’t just, um, yeah, have one person on top to initiate that change. So that ownership is very important. And concerning the engagement so if you have people engaged in the organization, who identify with the organization or want to go the extra mile, who feel like, okay, I want to do a good job here, because I feel like there’s a good purpose in this, to do a good job here, because I feel like there’s a good purpose in this, and then then you have much, a much better performance in the organization. Also, adaption, adoption of BPM, and for that it’s very important to involve people from a very early stage on in the whole process of process management and and also take this feedback and also include it, so not only listen to it, but actually, um, yeah, work on that feedback, um, to have them participate in this whole process, because then it’s not something, a change that is just imposed on them, but some they feel like being part of it and and then they have a completely different approach and attitude towards this change. So I think this is very important.
Amelie: 15:13
And concerning the excellence part, bpm is trying to achieve efficient and effective business processes, so this involves also a continuous improvement of processes and to have that excellence, it’s important that there’s this ongoing process of improvement. It’s not a static thing, and also this requires people to have the opportunity to continuously learn and improve their own skills, Because new tools come also with the whole digitalization. People may struggle to keep up with that and, depending on the industry, people have to deal with software changes or tools changes in a very frequent way, so it’s important to provide people with learning. So these were just some highlights of the model. The rest you can read in the thesis if you want. But yeah, it won’t be too long to present all of them. But yeah, that was a wrap-up of the model.
Mirko: 16:22
Okay, yeah, that’s super interesting, and a lot of the factors you just mentioned are also part of new process approach, so that’s great to hear that. From a research perspective, what I’m doing with new process somehow makes sense and, to be honest, I did a lot of research in the past. So we worked together with the University of Bamberg and also with the University of Liechtenstein, and so I was part of as I already said to you before not in this interview I think so far that I was part of the group who developed this BPM culture topic I’m not sure, when it was 2010, 11, something like that in Liechtenstein, and I think I already told the story that I nearly died after that. Well, we went downhill, yeah, okay, but that’s another story. So that’s that’s super cool to hear. And what do you think? What are the biggest challenges in developing a strong bpm culture in an organization?
Amelie: 17:22
I think, first of all, the the approach to try to create a culture or change a culture is quite difficult, I think, because it’s like I mean, it’s not like a mood in the organization, because child culture is something that develops in the long run. But, yeah, I think you have to start at a different point and really know your people and also address individual issues and consider individual situations, and by that a healthy and good culture can develop. But I think some organizations use a common approach to define cool new values that sound amazing and then they publish them and ask people to adapt to these values. But it’s, yeah, I I don’t think this is a the right approach there. So I think it’s it’s really important to to consider the, the fears and the wishes of every individual person that is involved in a process and that you want to engage in it and to really mean it.
Amelie: 18:27
I think you have to be authentic in that, otherwise this cultural development thing is, um, yeah, is another buzzword flying around, and I think there are a lot of people who just resist because they feel like there’s again something they have to change, and so I think it’s it’s first of all a challenge to like how this, how to develop this culture. And um, also, what I found from the interviews is that it is really important to consider the history of bpm in that organization. So, and not only bpm, but every, every framework that was adopted or every transformation that was done in the organization, because usually people it’s not like a blank page, they have experience with past changes and BPM comes from a quite radical corner. So, with the business process re-engineering in the nineties, where it was like quite radical approach to just like cut to costs and not really having this human-centric approach that you are trying to or develop today, there was a long way of radical changes and people who work in organizations for longer now they still have that experience.
Amelie: 19:50
And then if somebody new comes and says like okay, let’s do a business process man, then they’re going to be like, oh no, this is awful I don’t want to do this so, um, yeah, I think it’s really important to to uh consider this history and also the experience of every person with with changes. Um, if it’s a person only had really good experiences because there was a good change manager and involved people in the change, they might be okay, nice, let’s try something new. But yeah, if you didn’t have that experience, so, I think this is a big challenge.
Amelie: 20:24
And one other thing is in research they discuss the organizational culture in general and in models it’s considered one organizational culture, but there are usually several cultures within an organization, so it is like several subcultures and these cultural differences in organizations really need to be considered. Cultural differences in organizations really needs to be considered, otherwise it’s just pretty difficult to find one approach to address all people. So in function-oriented organizations, usually in every department there’s a certain culture or way of communicating. Also, depending on the person who is in the leading position. The answer is also a challenge, I would say.
Mirko: 21:18
Okay, cool. In addition to taking these challenges into account, what would you recommend to our listeners to do to improve BPM culture? Do you have some specific tips and tricks?
Amelie: 21:31
to do to improve BPM culture. So do you have some specific tips and tricks? I don’t have practically proved tips and tricks because right now I’m coming right from the theory, but I think it’s, at the end, not a very complex thing to do. It’s just like if you’re human, if you’re authentic and if you’re trying to listen to the person that you’re trying to convince of something, then it’s the best way to proceed, I think and this especially applies to leaders. So I can imagine to be in a leadership position in an organization and lead people. But maybe not everyone wants to lead. Maybe some people want to have guidance and want to be led by a good leadership person.
Amelie: 22:24
So I think it’s really important to develop good leadership, people who lead by example and really mean it, who are convinced of BPM, for example, and see that this can really improve processes in the organization but also help people to do a better job. So I think it’s not only about documenting every process and improve every little step in an organization, and also things that are done properly, so if people are fulfilling their tasks somehow and it works out. Maybe this is not the area you should work on, but maybe you should work on the areas where people where there’s a lot of friction or where a lot of mistakes happen, and also the areas where people procrastinate, because I think these are the actual difficult tasks and I’m talking about personal experience. I’m a massive procrastinator and it’s usually with the things where I don’t know how to solve them, and I think at this point, processes can really help to understand, step by step, how you should proceed, and I think these are the real inefficiencies in organizations.
Amelie: 23:41
So I think this is something that you should rather address than being really strict about how people should do every task. So every person is working a different way and I think you should let them work somehow in their way, provide them a certain flexibility in fulfilling their tasks, as long as the job is done in a good and legal way. But yeah, I think they should. If they provide a certain outcome, it’s fine. I think you should more focus on the trouble aspects. And one last thing is I read a lot of papers from bpm and touched areas of change, management and and other areas, but I think with bpm and every other management approach or transformation approach in an organization, it’s really important to include psychological aspects and to have people in the organization who have a certain knowledge about that, and I was very impressed by the presentation of Leona in the New Process Conference.
Mirko: 24:45
Yeah.
Amelie: 24:46
Because she put it so simple with the basic needs that should be fulfilled for every person, and if they are not fulfilled, then it is clear that in the long run, they are not happy with their job and they don’t perform well. So I think it’s a really good investment to get people on board who have the psychological knowledge and to have a good change management approach where they include the people and I also discussed that with Leona at the conference that it would be so nice to have, like a sparing partner for a leadership person. So leadership people are doing that now to involve a coach, coach to just coach them in their leadership behavior, and I think it’s really good to have this, this very partner. So I think this is something, yeah, that would be good also for creating a good culture for bpm okay, so also having sparring’s partner for process owners and process architects, right, okay so also having a sparrings partner for process owners and process architects, right, yeah, at the end, for everyone.
Amelie: 25:52
I think it’s good if there’s. Yeah, I don’t know how it would be done in an organization, but I think it’s just good if you have somebody to discuss your ideas or your next steps with and or your trouble points. I think, yeah, probably everyone could need a sparing partner in this. But leadership people in general, or people who make decisions that have influence on others, I think especially for them it’s important because they just have a big influence on people and it’s important that they consider what decisions they take.
Mirko: 26:29
Okay, Great that you mentioned Leona’s presentation at the New Process Conference because this might be a follow-up deep dive topic to invite.
Mirko: 26:40
Leona again and to talk about the content of her presentation at the conference, because that was something a bit different compared to what we talked about in the episode before, when we talked about managing across different generations, so that could be super interesting, also as a follow-up to what we discussed today here. That’s cool. Applying your overall experience to rethinking processes what are your top three recommendations to get to a more human-centric BPM approach and to inspire people for processes?
Amelie: 27:16
As I mentioned before, I think it’s really important to involve the people and the whole process of process management as early as possible and to also expect some good new insights from them. So it shouldn’t only be like, okay, let’s do this, because we have to do this. I think people can expect a lot from the people working on the process, so there’s probably a lot of interesting insights. So it’s very helpful, probably, and also necessary to involve them very helpful, probably, and also necessary to involve them um and um.
Amelie: 27:56
I also mentioned to consider the individual situation of a person and this also concerns the psychological safety and well-being, so people might have a very stressful time in their personal life, but still, they want to do a good job, but they might need more security or more feedback to just not be insecure in every area of their life. So I think it’s important to have an open communication there and also help in difficult situations to free up energy, to move in new waters and to even have the guts to do that. And I think one aspect we were talking about the purpose as well, the constraints and how far we can try to tell people what the purpose of something is. But I think at the end, in general, processes just should be helpful for people, because otherwise it’s, yeah, it’s very difficult to um, yeah, make them be exciting about it, which is another level again, but, um, it’s at least for me it’s like a manual how to do something that I don’t know how to do in my mind. Because if I know how to do something, I know I know how to go to the toilet, but I wouldn’t know how to install it, for example, and there it’s really helpful to have a manual for that.
Amelie: 29:26
And I’m really a big fan of reading ikea manuals and really following step by step, because then the pucks, uh closet, will be standing for a long time. Others don’t like to follow these manuals, so maybe it’s also, yeah, personality thing and just see. Okay, I know where this goes and let’s see if it yeah sticks together. Um, but I think it’s really uh necessary to show that these processes can really help to also relieve a little bit the stress of this big task and to have little steps on how to fulfill the big task. And uh, yeah, I think it’s important to show how it can actually help and it should actually help. So it if the process just complicates things, it’s not good.
Mirko: 30:13
Yeah, okay, I remember the story. Michael Buechler told, I think at the conference, about the IKEA instructions. Do you belong?
Amelie: 30:20
to the people. Yeah, that’s the one I missed.
Mirko: 30:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah Right, you had your master thesis presentation.
Speaker: 30:29
Yes.
Mirko: 30:31
You had to defend your master thesis presentation. Yes, you had to defend your master thesis while we had Michael’s presentation. That’s true, but do you belong to the people who actually count the parts which are named in an IKEA instruction before you put everything together?
Amelie: 30:46
Do you?
Mirko: 30:46
check if all the screws are there, or do you just start?
Amelie: 30:49
Not at the beginning, but if I feel like in the middle of it. Oh no, it could happen that something is missing. I have to do it right away, because I would be so frustrated to be at 90 of building up something and then it’s like okay, now something is missing and I have to go to ikea again. So, um yeah, if, if something seems weird, I have to count everything, okay that’s very good, because he said there are two extremes.
Mirko: 31:16
at one end, the people just start building um without reading the manual and on the other extreme, you have people who count if all the parts are there, even all the screws, uh, which are necessary to build whatever you’re going to build. And that was something a trainer told to the group in the training and one of the participants looked and said what are you not counting all the screws before you’re starting? And yeah, so that’s super interesting, depending on what type of person you are, and so on.
Amelie: 31:50
Yeah, and that’s another aspect that is super interesting, depending on what type of person you are, and so on. Yeah, and that’s another aspect that is really interesting, because I didn’t know he was talking about this and what am I mentioning? The same thing, and if you would have asked for aisle or window seat, I would have had the same answer as Leona, where I thought it’s such an individual answer, with this feeling weird, that you have to wake up the person or climb over it if the person is sleeping. So I’d rather sit at the ice sheet. And this is, I think, generally the case that you might feel so individual with your fears and expectations and the way you work, but there are a lot of things in common and we’re not that different. So I think it’s it’s um, it’s pretty easy to find a relatable story, like the Ikea manual or something else, where you can actually connect with people, and and it’s, yeah, I think it’s, it’s not so complex as it seems sometimes.
Mirko: 32:43
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and maybe I should have asked you in a check-in. Yeah, okay, and maybe I should have asked you in a check-in what do you prefer in an air-crossed aisle or window seat? But now you answered that even without asking. That’s super cool. But to wrap it up, what is your key message to our listeners? To rethink processes.
Amelie: 33:04
I think it’s important to take the time and probably the money because it’s more investment to have a a good approach to BPM that takes the time to involve the people and that people should feel well in doing their job, because I think at the end and only if you want to consider it economically if people feel well in their job and they are supported and they are able to to work up to their full potential, they do a much better job. So I think, yeah, people need to feel well, to their full potential, they do a much better job. So I think, yeah, people need to feel well to do a good job. So I think this is important to consider BPM and there’s no just fast lane to implement it quickly and then hope this is going to work, because a lot of BPM projects fail just to that reason that they don’t consider cultural factors or don’t consider the people and just force change on them, and this doesn’t work.
Mirko: 34:02
So I think, if you just want to think economically, it’s still important that people feel well at the job okay, that’s cool, and I think we just have to follow up with another episode with leona to to learn more about these psychological expects yeah, I would be really interested in that. Absolutely. Yeah, that’s cool, but today we are talking about your work, and where can our listeners learn more about your activities? Can they read your thesis? Read the summary? Is it published somewhere? Where can they go to?
Amelie: 34:35
The summary is still a work at progress, but it’s my next step after this podcast. But yeah, so far I’m just on LinkedIn. I’m happy to connect with anyone who wants to discuss this topic and other topics of change management or anything that could be inspiring. And yeah, the master thesis is so far in the university repository and it’s available there, but I might just also add it to my LinkedIn profile, so it’s available. And yeah, this is the only platform where I’m residing on from all the platforms so far.
Mirko: 35:18
So yeah, that’s okay so I’m going to put your linkedin profile or the link to your linkedin profile to the show notes and which I don’t know. Topic method, tool or expert would you recommend to me or to the new process community to have a closer look at, to get new ideas on how to rethink processes? So do you have a recommendation for it?
Amelie: 35:44
topic methods besides, uh, new process lab, which is like the website for that, yeah, um, which I was also very excited to find, um that there’s somebody working on this topic.
Amelie: 35:58
Um, so, um, I yeah, I think it depends on what, what area you want to cover. So, concerning classical research models, I can also recommend to look at my skills, because there I summarize all these models. But, um, I think, for example, concerning the leadership, I just love that video. I have to promote it. It’s leadership of a dancing guy. It’s just a YouTube video, but it shows how much power it has if there is a leader who’s actually showing, or he’s just dancing and is just living it, and one follower comes and there’s this follower principle and then a whole movement starts. And I think it’s it’s really important for leaders to see that, what, what they can do to have a right movement. And, um, concerning the, the culture, the organizational culture, there’s, um, the one famous framework that’s the competing values framework by Cameron and.
Amelie: 36:59
Quinn. I think they published it in the late 80s, but later Cameron and Quinn published a book Diagnosing and Changing an Organizational Culture and they also created an assessment tool for organizational cultures and it’s really interesting. It’s a long book but it’s really interesting to read what kind of culture types exist and, depending on the culture type existing, what measures you have to take or how to address these cultures. So for anyone who wants to dive deeper in these culture aspects, it’s really interesting. Dive deeper in these culture aspects is really interesting. Concerning, or what is related to my work, I wanted to elaborate more on recommendations and actions to take to create a BPM culture. But yeah, at some, point I couldn’t.
Amelie: 37:54
There was no time to work on that more in my thesis, but there was at least one paper by Ali Baba I hope that’s how to pronounce it who defined nine success factors of BPM and then defined a lot of actions, how to create that. So this was, yeah, I think, the most practical approach to create successful um, a successful bpm. So I think this could be linked as well, maybe in the show notes, but this was, yeah, I think, the most practical approach. That was helpful, yeah okay, that’s cool.
Mirko: 38:28
Yeah, definitely, we’re going to put the links into the show notes. That’s super cool. Okay, cool. Before we end this episode today, is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners?
Amelie: 38:43
I think, starting this BPM journey now and maybe change management, I felt like I might be a bit idealistic with some ideas, but at least at the new process conference I felt that there are people way longer in the in this, in the industry, and they are still idealistic and have the idea of like doing something right. So I think it’s good to follow that and to find people that spark and that have ideas and they want to discuss new things, and I think this really helps to maneuver through this weird way of finding your path and I really don’t know where my path is leading, but I think it helps to stick to people that inspire you and to discuss with them, yeah, the topics that you like that’s cool, that’s perfect.
Mirko: 39:37
And how would you describe your first? It was your first podcast ever, right? How would you describe your podcast experience in just three words?
Amelie: 39:46
Exciting, of course, a little bit bumpy and still smoother than I thought.
Mirko: 39:55
Okay, yeah, I think it was quite smooth and interesting, so I really enjoyed. Okay, yeah, I think it was quite smooth and interesting, so I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot and I was really remembered of things and I’m going to think about that and put some more thoughts into the recap afterwards and maybe we can pick that up again. Maybe we can have a live session on new process pro in the future to elaborate more on BPM culture and we’ll see how this will work out. That’s super interesting, so I’m going to thank you so much for being my guest today, for sharing some insights into your math thesis. That was super interesting. Thank you very much. Have a great day.
Amelie: 40:37
Thank you.
Mirko: 40:52
Wow, I just love to learn more about process culture. So here comes my conclusion of the conversation with Amelie as a core learning, I take with me that you have to consider the context and the culture of an organization or even a specific business process to be successful with BPM. Regarding the context, we have to think about aspects like the size of the company, the industry, the strategy and also the history of BPM in the organization. When it comes to culture, I learned that there are some key values that have a positive impact on process culture. These values are openness, like having a good failure culture, having transparency, fostering trust, being curious and open-minded. Second, ownership, so let people initiate change and take on responsibility to improve their own processes yeah, that’s super important. And third one, engagement People need to understand the purpose of processes and they have to be involved, to be motivated. And the fourth one is excellence, so having an ongoing process of improvement established. That’s what she told us, and I think all these four values are already part of new process approach, like we have them in the new process principles. Yeah, openness, for example, by trust the people working in and on the process is one principle, and the second one is to involve the people who are working in the process into the work on the process, and then engagement can be pushed by giving meaning to the processes, by developing a process purpose, which I talk a lot about yeah, I’m sorry for that. And then, regarding excellence as a value that positively influences the process culture, we have the new process lifecycle as a blueprint of a process of process management that can be used to bring a new process approach to life.
Mirko: 43:00
But what triggers me the most is ownership. Yes, sure, we have the new process role concept with BPM roles such as process owner, process architect, for both as an example. The respective role owners have to be inspired and trained so that they are enabled to live their roles, to improve processes from time to time and to inspire others for processes. This also reminds me of two tools I had in the podcast. The first is Kuviki, the second one is ShiftX. Both support the idea that every single employee should be able to improve processes by suggesting process improvements, not just by a feedback to the owner, but by designing the process changes on their own in the tool, so the employees can really map processes on their own and suggest process changes. Actually, I wasn’t really aware of the power of this approach because in my world there has always been the role of the process modeler to map processes, so giving that power to the people is super interesting, and I will have to think about that and explore this approach a bit more.
Mirko: 44:37
I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this. Yeah, so I also support amelie’s recommendation to lead by example. We, as the ones pushing process ahead, have to be a role model for excellent processes, to build a positive process culture. Basically, this is a leadership task and, as she said, it is good for leaders to have a coach who helps to improve leadership and who acts as a sparring partner. And, in the context of BPM, wouldn’t it be great to also have a sparring partner for process owners and process architects, architects, or even for the ones among us who are responsible for the implementation of BPM in an organization? Wouldn’t it be super cool to have a coach? And maybe the conversation with Amelie contributed to this.
Mirko: 45:31
But I think I talked to so many people of you during the last years and I realized that it would be super helpful to offer something like BPM coaching to you as well, to guide you on your way, on your journey, to travel together with you and that’s why, by the way, that’s why I’m offering a BPM navigator program where we can work together to push your process to the next level. So, for example, to develop process purpose, to build your process community, find out how to map processes in a way that people understand and even support you in implementing a human-centric BPM framework to get your organization excited about processes. The BPM Navigator program starts with an online session to really analyze where you are at the moment and to define the measures to get to the next level on your process journey. And then we’re going to work for 10 weeks, every second week in a 45 minutes online session, to get to this target picture we have defined together and I’m going to support you with industry proven tools, methods, best practice and so on to work on these measures. And then, after 12 weeks, we’re going to wrap it up, check where you are now on your process journey and define measures what you can do on your own as next steps to travel further on your journey. So if you want to learn more about the BPM Navigator program, just go to newprocesslabcom slash navigator.
Mirko: 47:12
Okay, but back to the conversation with Amelie. I’m going to put all the links and the topics she mentioned into the show notes. Yeah, before we leave this episode, I promise you to tell you how I nearly died because of France’s culture, right? Actually, together with Michael Bürgler, I participated in a workshop in Liechtenstein in 2013. And the workshop was called the First International BPM culture workshop, which was hosted by University of Liechtenstein. There, jan von Brocke introduced the model they developed and we discussed it from an industry point of view and challenged it with our experiences and so on.
Mirko: 47:53
And after the workshop, we went on to a mountain, to a nice Liechtenstein restaurant I think it was Quai de Fondue and some drinks, and then, finally, to go back downhill.
Mirko: 48:05
We took a sled to get down the hill on a very icy, dangerous road. I think one sled broke, we lost two sleds Luckily, only the sleds, not the people and I was really happy that I arrived at the bottom of the mountain alive. So that’s my story about France’s culture and why I nearly died in this context, so maybe I’m going to put links on that or pictures into the show notes. While I looked it up again, I realized that there is also a video existing, so maybe I’m going to share that as well. So watch out for this. Yeah, in the next episode. This is going to be another deep dive episode into methodology, in this case into a super interesting way of prototyping and how to think with your hands, and I’m also planning another episode with Leona on psychology and BPM, both accompanied by live sessions on New Process Pro. So make sure that you’re not missing these Sign up for New Process Pro, if you haven’t yet, by going to newprocesslabcom. But for now, thank you very much for listening. Have a fantastic day.
Mirko: 49:38
Before you leave. As I already mentioned in the recap, I’m offering a program to accompany you on your BPM journey and to support you with industry-proven tools, methods and best practices To, for example, get people excited about processes, to develop a process purpose, to map processes in a way that is easily understood by all the employees, or even to implement a process purpose. To map processes in a way that is easy understood by all the employees, or even to implement a human-centric BPM framework. So if you think this could be helpful for you, just go to newprocesslabcom slash navigator to learn more about the BPM Navigator program. Thank you much, bye-bye.
