State of New Process 2025 – Available in German and English
#62 Let’s recap the State of New Process 2025. Learn what New Process really is and how you can use it to build a process-driven organization.
In this episode, I’m providing an overview about the current State of New Process in 2025. I’m recaping on what New Process really is, its latest developments, and how it can be used to build a process-driven organization.
For the first time ever, this episode is not only available in English but also in German! 🚀
You’ll learn:
- What New Process actually is and where we are with it in 2025
- How you can get people excited about processes
- How to develop a process-driven organization
If you need support in setting up such an organization, let’s talk! You are welcome to schedule a meeting with me.
Resources
In addition, I’m sharing the BPM Roadmap with you here:
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Transcript
Please note that the transcript was generated automatically and only slightly adjusted. It does not claim to be a perfect transcription.
Jingle: 0:01
Welcome to the New Process Podcast. Learn all the tools, methods and best practices, combined with people, emotions and a human-centric mindset, to rethink your process and push it to the next level, and here is your host, Marco Kloppenberg.
Mirko: 0:19
Yeah, welcome to episode 62 of the New Process Podcast. Today, we’ll take an in-depth look at the current state of New Process, the state of New Process 2025. And, as you may have already noticed in your podcast player, this is a very special episode. For the first time, this episode is available not only in English, but also in German. So if you prefer listening to German podcasts, just jump to the other episode, which is also episode 62. Should be next to this one in your podcast player, but for all the ones who prefer English, you’re welcome right here.
Mirko: 1:04
Let’s get started. So for more than 20 years, I’ve been deeply involved in process management, as most of you, I think, already know. Five years ago, I published the first ideas on new process on LinkedIn, and for the past three years, I’ve been working now full time on questions such as how you can rethink BPM, how people can be placed at the center of action when we’re talking about processes, how people can be inspired for processes and how can a process culture be developed that’s also a big question and finally, how do you build a process-driven organization. And this is exactly what new process is all about. So in this episode, you will learn what new process actually is and where we are with development in 2025. You can learn how to inspire people for processes and how to develop a process-driven organization. So enjoy this episode on the state of new process 2025.
Jingle: 2:20
And now let’s start to rethink processes. So where do we stand with new process in 2025? And now let’s start to rethink processes.
Mirko: 2:25
So where do we stand with new process in 2025? Or where do we stand with BPM in general in 2025? Let’s take a look at the results of the top BPM topics 2025 survey, which I conducted at the end of 2024,. More than 100 participants worldwide answered questions on what do they have on their list for 2025. And about 50 something percent are coming from the DACH region, so from Germany, austria, switzerland. That’s also the reason why we have this episode in German as well. But just to give you an idea about who participated in that survey, and they named four top topics and with 17 percent so 17 percent of the participants said that they have this topic on their list for 2025. They named applying process mining, so using process mining to analyze processes. Looking at the current marketing buzz around process mining, I think it’s still surprising that only 17% have that on the list for this year, but okay, that’s how it is. And then, with 22%, we have the modeling of processes and design of process architecture. That’s on the list of the people for this year. This really decreased by 10% compared to the numbers of last year, but still it’s super important to build an end-to-end process architecture to map processes in a way that the people really understand.
Mirko: 4:04
Yeah. Then we have a big topic named by 46% of the survey participants and that’s improving processes using automation, ai, whatever, to improve processes. So nearly half of the people out there are working on improving processes this year. Then, finally, we have the big topic with 68% of the participants who named something that contributes to building a process-driven organization. So that’s really the big topic out there Getting people excited about processes, convincing management of the benefit of BPM, building a yeah, hopefully human-centric or building a BPM framework, developing this and enabling BPM roles, for example. So these are all topics that are part of building a process-driven organization. I’ll tell you more about the details later on, but first let’s talk about the key learnings of these four topics from my point of view.
Mirko: 5:21
So it’s super good that many of you have recognized voluntary or maybe not 100% voluntary that you first need to work on the basics before tackling more advanced topics. So a lot of you understand and that’s super cool that first you have to talk about the basics, build a process culture, get the people excited about process, get a common understanding of what the process really is about and then in the next step, yeah, you can start with more advanced technologies. However, I I see that there still is a risk with these 46% focusing on improving their process, that you’re going to do this without thinking about the basics. That’s something I often experience when talking to customers. They would like to automate processes, but the common idea of what to automate is missing, so that wouldn’t work. That’s why it’s so important to think about the basics first, and I’m I’m always using a super simple maturity model there just to give you an idea of what I have in mind when talking about different maturity levels.
Mirko: 6:43
Level zero yeah, no real maturity level at all. The process somehow exists implicitly. They are there, we know somehow we’re doing something in a somehow structured way, but no process is already defined. We don’t have a process owner and so on. So that’s often the status, and if you are there, you cannot directly jump to automation.
Mirko: 7:09
Yeah, first, in my world, level one would be that you document your processes, that you create this common understanding of processes. In the next step, put the processes into a notation, into a tool, using a language that all the people in the organization really understand on intuitively. Yeah, that’s the first level, then, and as soon as you have this first maturity level. Then you can go to the next level, level two, and start managing your processes Based on the documentation you can assign. Or first you can identify process owners or architects, for example, and get these people excited about their new role and enable them train them so that they can really execute the roles and manage processes. And as soon as we have the people there, we can go to the next level and start to optimize processes. In the first place, it’s often that we just standardize how the people are working, how we’re talking about the more or less low-hanging fruits implementing shared checklists or forms that everyone uses. So these are more or less the low-hanging fruits, the basics to optimize the process a little bit. And then, as soon as you have people that are responsible for your processes, that have a common understanding of who we’re talking about and the processes are already a bit standardized, then we can talk about automating processes, applying AI and so on as more or less the highest maturity level there. Yeah, but that’s definitely a journey, and the question often is how do we get there? How do we get to this kind of a process-driven organization where people are actively working on automating process, for example, and therefore I’m using BPM Roadmap. I’ll put that into the show notes as well. So if you would like to take a look, just go to the show notes of this episode by going to newproslabcom, slash episode 62. And you can directly access this BPM roadmap. But I’m going to tell you this how it looked like.
Mirko: 9:41
It consists of three stages. The first stage is positioning for impact, to develop the BPM purpose and the strategy for your specific organization and estimate and also demonstrate the BPM impact, what you would like to achieve with processes, and based on this you can then design the BPM framework. This is all in the beginning, in stage one. So the preparation, calculation of the benefit, development of the BPM strategy and the framework that’s the first step. Then, in stage two, we can start to implement this framework, implement this strategy. This often means to start building the process architecture, starting from the highest level process map, identifying the processes, prioritizing, also identifying the experts we would have to invite to go deeper into the details of the process and then invite the people to workshop and inspire the people and map their processes, best case as is. This can also be used to identify and appoint the VPM roles, like the process owner and the experts involved here. This can also be used to identify and appoint the BPM roles, like the process owner, and the experts involved here could be an architect in the future. That’s more or less the gateway to stage three.
Mirko: 11:14
Stage three is about managing improved processes. So now we have the people. We have already some process documentation which we can use as basis, and now we have to train the BPM roads, like process owners and architects, to really enable them to manage and improve their process. We need to guide them that’s something I would recommend here as well and they have to get used to their new toolbox, and in this toolbox, we can talk about more advanced technologies like process mining, automation, ai and so on. That’s something in stage three.
Mirko: 11:59
While we’re going through these three stages, which is often more or less technically, step by step, a structured procedure, it’s so important that you continuously build a process culture while you’re doing this, create transparency, involve the people, create experiences to get them excited about processes. That’s super important that you focus on this as well from a new process perspective, to really focus on the people, not just implement BPM framework, but really focus on the people there. As I said, going through stage 1, 2, 3, that’s quite easy using the right toolbox for this, but the real challenge is to develop a process culture. This does not happen overnight, but I know that from my years at Lufthansa Group.
Mirko: 13:04
When you look at Lufthansa Technik, for example, in specific, processes are now second nature to every employee. Every employee speaks this process language. They all speak, understand the same notation. They have process ownership established in the organization. It’s there. They have process owners for all processes. They even have experts working full-time or even organizational units with a number of experts working full-time on improving managing processes, and this goes up to the top management. They also have hands-on experience with processes in the episode with Joran Glusen. So about 20 years ago or maybe even more, I’ve been modeling processes with people who were on an expert level team leads, maybe director level for departments, and they were actively working on designing processes. And these people are now in the top management or direct to the board of the Lufthansa Technik group, for example, and that’s awesome if you have top management that really understands how processes can contribute to implementing a strategy, for example, so that’s that’s super cool.
Mirko: 14:39
But the initial problem there is that many people really don’t care about processes. They do not like they. They hate processes and they don’t want to change the ways they are working. And that’s where we have to start and that’s exactly where new process comes in. So, for the ones who are new to new process, it’s a combination of new work on the one hand, and business process management on the other hand. So it brings together all these modern ideas of new ways of working like purpose, diversity, transparency with the more mature methods from the process management world. And it’s definitely not new versus old process. You still need all the good ideas from the past, but in addition to that, we have to focus on the people working in it and on the processes. That’s super important.Mirko: 15:49
So the core of the new process approach are the new process principles. Actually, there is a full episode dedicated to these principles it’s episode two, so just scroll back in your player to the very beginning of the podcast but today I just want to give you a brief overview of the principles from a state of new process 2025 perspective. So there are eight new process principles in total at the moment. The first one is inspire people for processes, and that’s super important, as we, as the ones who are providing processes to an organization, act as role models and get the people excited about processes by, for example, explaining, showing the benefits of processes, like with the pizza game, for example later more on this.
Mirko: 16:51
Or another super cool idea is to really let the people experience process with the maker’s method, something we talked about in the podcast recently with Martin and Tobias from Maker’s Lab in Linz More on that in another episode, for sure or just go back to the one which we already recorded summer last year, or just go back to the one which we already recorded summer last year. Then the second principle is to involve the people the people that are working in the processes into the work on the process. Invite the employees, invite the real experts to participate in the improvement of the processes. First, create transparency, tell them what is coming up and invite them, maybe on-site in the workshop, maybe online, or if that’s not possible, you can still let the people review the results of a workshop and let them provide feedback, or minimum is to let them follow what is going on so that they can inform themselves and if they want to contribute, they can still raise their hand and say yeah.
Mirko: 18:06
I would like to see this and that here. So, involve the people. Then the third principle is to trust the people. Yeah, trust them and give them responsibility. That’s super important. Yeah, you know my favorite example of the purchasing process, which normally takes several steps to get the approval if you want to purchase something. Um, my idea would be to provide the necessary information to the people, to train them and then just to trust them that they, if they, have the knowledge. For example, do we have the budget? Is it really operationally necessary to buy material right now? Then I’m convinced that the people can take this decision on their own, but you just have to trust them. Then the fourth principle is to enable the people you know to think about formats, how to train them to execute an improved process, not just send out an email or, even worse, just publish the process in the tool and say here is the new process. No Best case. Ask the people what do you need to execute this process, to learn how to execute this new process, and then provide formats like trainings, workshops, whatever Maybe it was gamification to enable the people. Then the fifth principle is to meet people’s needs, for example, with regards to space tools, communication Take a look at where are the roles located that are executing a process.
Mirko: 19:54
If they have to work together, are they also sitting together in one office or close to each other? What kind of tools are they using? Which kind of meetings do they communicate on a regular basis, for example? So take a look at this. What do the people really need to work in the process? And maybe you are one of the lucky ones who received a new process calendar. There we have this question how does this process make you feel? Which always reminds me on asking the people, how do they feel. And if you ask this question, for example, in a process modeling session, this can be eye-opening what the people tell you about how they feel or how they felt last time executing the process, and you can use these emotional stories for communication, for example. Or we also talked about burnout prevention in one of the last episodes, so I find it super fascinating, um, to take a map process and then, for each and every activity, ask the people do you get energy from executing this activity or are you losing energy when you’re doing this? And this is individual, yeah, it could be different for different people, and it’s super cool to learn more about what do the people really need and how can we design processes that fit their needs.
Mirko: 21:25
Then the sixth principle is encourage diversity, for example, with regards to different cultures. Yeah, we all speak English, but we often don’t see the cultural differences between the countries, the cities or even two departments at one location. There could be different cultures in the departments. You have to take that into account as well and encourage this diversity into something like process diversity. So don’t see these different cultures as hurdles, but more as an enrichment for the process to build a perfect process based on the different approaches of the different cultures. Yeah, I really love this.Mirko: 22:12
And then the seventh principle. It’s disrupt established processes. Yeah, really break patterns. Yeah, encourage the people to break patterns of processes that are already running for years. Tell them that it is allowed to question the status quo, and that’s something you really have to tell the people that we are here today and that we have an expectation that you are allowed to break patterns. It’s not to destroy processes, it’s more to really break up what is already there to get to a new, higher level.Mirko: 22:58
And finally, the eighth principle is give meaning to processes.
Mirko: 23:03
You know that’s the highest level you can reach there to talk about the purpose of the process. Why do we have this process and how does this process contribute to the overall purpose of an organization? That’s also the beginning of the new process life cycle, of the first phase of the process of process management that I am using. So that’s, that’s super, super powerful to talk about purpose, which normally takes several steps to get the approval. If you want to purchase something, my idea would be to provide the necessary information to the people, to train them, and then just to trust them that they, if they have the knowledge for example, do we have the budget? Is it really operationally necessary to buy material right now? Then I’m convinced that the people can take this decision on their own, but you just have to trust them. And then the fourth principle is to enable the people you know to think about formats, how to train them to execute an new process, and then provide formats like trainings, workshops, whatever Maybe it was gamification to enable the people to meet people’s needs, for example, with regards to space tools communication.
Mirko: 24:56
Take a look at where are the roles located that are executing a process If they have to work together. Are they also sitting together in one office or close to each other. What kind of tools are they using? Which kind of meetings do they communicate on a regular basis, for example? So take a look at this what do the people really need to work in the process? And maybe you are one of the lucky ones who received a new process calendar. There we have this question how does this process make you feel? Which always reminds me on asking the people how do they feel. And if you ask this question, for example, in a process modeling session, this can be eye-opening what the people tell you about how they feel, or how they felt last time executing the process. And you can use these emotional stories for communication, for example. Or we also talked about burnout prevention in one of the last episodes. So I find it super fascinating to take a map process and then, for each and every activity, ask the people do you get energy from executing this activity or are you losing energy when you’re doing this? And this is individual. Yeah, it could be different for different people, and it’s super cool to learn more about what do the people really need and how can we design processes that fit their needs.
Mirko: 26:34
Then the sixth principle is encourage diversity, for example, with regards to different cultures. Yeah, we all speak English, but we often don’t see the cultural differences between the countries, the cities or even two departments at one location. There could be different cultures in the departments. You have to take that into account as well and encourage this diversity into something like process diversity. So don’t see these different cultures as hurdles, but more as an enrichment for the process to build a perfect process based on the different approaches of the different cultures. I really love this.
Mirko: 27:18
Then the seventh principle it’s disrupt established processes, really break patterns. Encourage people to break patterns of processes that are already running for years. Tell them that it is allowed to question the status quo, and that’s something you really have to tell the people that we are here today and that we have an expectation that you are allowed to break patterns. It’s not to destroy processes, it’s more to really break up what is already there, to get to a new, higher level. And finally, the eighth principle is give meaning to processes. Principle is give meaning to processes. You know that’s the highest level you can reach there to to talk about the purpose of the process. Why do we have this process and how does this process contribute to the overall purpose of an organization. That’s also the beginning of the new process life cycle, of the first phase of the process of process management that I am using. So that’s super, super powerful to talk about purpose. So now you have an idea of what the new process principles are, what is core of new process approach? And then the question always is how do we bring these principles to life? And the answer is actually quite simple by making it a process, the new process lifecycle, for example. As I already said, that’s the process of process management I’m using, so that’s core of every BPM framework to have a process, how you manage and improve your processes. This also includes the roles, like the process owner, for example, which we can then engage and empower. This brings it all together to get new process flying. And since it’s often very abstract, I’d like to revisit the BPM roadmap with a practical example. Maybe you remember this. Michael Zirn already talked about our joint project at DRF Luftrettung at last year’s New Process Conference. Drf Luftrettung is one of the largest air rescue organizations in Europe, with stations across Germany and several rescue helicopters in Austria as well, and over the past few years, drf Luftrettung has grown significantly almost doubling within five years and its established structures and processes have started to reach their limits in terms of control and growth, faithing in new employees, for example. That was the challenge. And now let’s take a look at the key milestones on the roadmap to becoming a process-driven organization, to use this to support their growth, and so on. So, as I said, there are three stages and in stage one, positioning for impact. It’s, in the beginning, all about thinking about the purpose and the strategy of your BPM approach, how this can create an impact and a benefit for the organization, how this can create an impact and a benefit for the organization and for die Luftrettung. They have something like a motto or maybe it’s also a purpose of the organization and that’s called Menschenleben retten in German. So something like saving people’s lives. That’s how I would translate this. And what cool purpose could a company have than saving people’s lives? Wow, yeah, I’m somehow contributing to saving people’s lives, and that’s exactly what we worked out there as the purpose of BPM as well. We want to show, with the processes, each individual contribution to saving people’s lives. It doesn’t matter if you are working at goods receiving, taking packages from logistics services, or delivering company mail mail, or working in HR in the recruiting process. All these people are, in the end, contributing to saving people’s lives. That’s what we used as basis in the first stage for the BPM purpose and the BPM strategy and based on this purpose, we then build a BPM framework Process of process management. We implemented, or at first we developed, the roles like having a process owner who is responsible, even accountable, with regards to RACI classification, for process design. And we also thought about how are we going to map our processes to make it easy for every single employee to understand how he or she is contributing to saving people’s lives. And that’s how we build the framework in stage one. And then we started to switch over to stage two and implement this BPM framework, took a look at the highest level process map which we developed, and prioritized processes, and then we invited the people of specific processes to map their as-is processes. And then we always started, when we started mapping processes, with a workshop on site and played the pizza game. You know I’m talking a lot about the pizza game. I know you know that If you want to learn more about that game, just go to newproslabcom slash pizza game. But for now it’s a game, a simulation, a business simulation that you can play to let the people really experience how a documented process can help to learn how to execute a process you haven’t executed before. Just based on documentation, you know you can learn how this really helps and the people can make first experience with improving the process and, most important, they have a lot of fun and based on this, you can then start modeling their processes, because they learned the language, they really enjoyed it, they had first positive experiences and it’s so fascinating to see when you’re mapping processes in one session and and then a week later you get together again and the people tell you yeah, I’ve been using my process model to discuss that with my colleagues. So that’s how developing a process culture really starts. The people take the results and discuss them with their colleagues. I really love that and, based on these workshops, you can easily identify the people that are the process owners. That’s often quite easy if that falls together with the line organization as well, but you can easily identify the people who could be potential process architects and then you can move to stage three. Train these people to manage processes in a professional way. Yeah, inspire them and empower and enable these BPM roles or tools like process mining, automation, ai and so on. Yeah, that’s the highest level there, but you have to think about the basics first and implement the process culture first. That’s also something you’re doing continuously in parallel to all these activities to create transparency, invite the people to participate, let them know what is going on. I’d like to point out this podcast process podcast we created at DRF Luftrettung. Here as well. You know, we recorded episodes of 20 to 30 minutes inviting people that were participating in the workshops, in the modeling sessions, for example, and ask them to tell their story, what they experienced in the sessions, what they learned about processes, what kind of potential they see for the future. This really created transparency and trust in what is going on there. So this is just one example of what you can do in parallel to just implementing a BPM framework technically to support creating process culture here. Yeah, so this is where we are right now with new process in 2025. We talked about the current topics. We talked about the new process principles. We talked about the BPM roadmap, that you first have to think about the basics before applying advanced technologies, and I also talked a lot about the core element of the BPM framework here. So now you have a quite good overview on the status of new process 2025 let’s recap today’s new process inspiration.
Mirko: 37:48
Yeah, that’s the state of new process 2025.
Mirko: 37:53
Let’s quickly summarize the key points. So new process is all about putting the people at the center of all activities and inspiring them for processes. To achieve this, we have the new process principles as the core of the new process approach. These principles come to life through the new process BPM framework, which is essential for developing a process-driven organization. To get there, we follow the BPM roadmap with three stages. The first stage is to position for impact Talk about the purpose and the strategy of what we would like to achieve with BPM, its impact and the benefit.
Mirko: 38:37
Based on the BPM purpose and strategy, we can develop the BPM framework, which basically consists of the process of process management. So I would always recommend to take a look at the new process lifecycle as my blueprint. You can simply more or less copy and paste just a bit to your needs as a structured approach to manage and improve processes. This also includes the role concept, like the process owner, make these people visible, assign responsibility and empower them, as well as communication flows to ensure the governance. And it also includes the BPM architecture or the process architecture of your organization, the modeling notation you’re using, maybe also the tool to develop a shared, common understanding of what processes are all about. And then, as soon as you have this framework designed, we can start to implement it in stage two. Then we start building the process architecture from top down until we map the processes in more detail to create this shared understanding and, based on the processes, you can identify and assign BPM roles, like process owner, process architects and so on. And then finally, in stage three, it’s all about managing and improving processes. Inspire and empower the BPM roles, like process owners, architects, and then provide them with a toolbox which also includes process mining, automation, ai. So this is the highest maturity level which we can then fully implement when we are in stage three. And in parallel, always take into account that you have to work on developing a process culture with transparency, open communication, invite the people to participate.
Mirko: 40:39
That’s the core of the roadmap and the core element of everything is, from my point of view, the bpm framework. So the process life cycle, the bpm roads, that’s the core, which can not only be applied to bpm itself. It can be applied to any process out there. But if you apply that to BPM itself, it starts with thinking about what’s the process purpose of BPM and what’s the BPM strategy and its impact, and, it’s for sure, also about modeling and then, finally, about managing and improving processes. So it’s super important to have a BPM framework in place and that’s something which is often missing out there.
Mirko: 41:32
And you don’t have to invent the process framework on your own. You know, I know this takes a lot of time and you will need a lot of trial and error practice. You will need a lot of trial and error practice, theoretical experience. What I can offer to you is simply use the BPM framework I am offering. If you would like to learn more about that, just go to NewProcessLab.com/framework. And I know it’s super hard to do this journey on your own. In addition to the framework, what I can offer you is my sparring program, the BPM Navigator program, where I can help you with getting to the next level as a sparrings partner To discuss your questions, to provide feedback, theoretical, practical experience. To learn more about that, just go to NewProcessLab.com/navigator. Yeah, so that’s the state of new process 2025.
Mirko: 42:40
For the next episode, I’m still not sure. I haven’t decided what exactly will be the next episode. There is a lot in the pipeline but, due to the fact that I’m still not sure. I haven’t decided what exactly will be the next episode. There is a lot in the pipeline but due to the fact that I’m still producing just in time to be really up to date with the content, I haven’t decided yet. But don’t forget to subscribe to the New Process Podcast. Follow it in your favorite podcast app to not miss the next episode. So thank you much for listening. Have a fantastic day. Bye, bye, auf Wiedersehen.
Jingle: 43:14
You’ve been listening to the new process podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode for more tools, methods and best practices to rethink your process and push it to the next level. Thank you for listening.
Mirko: 43:30
Before you leave. I know how hard the journey to a process-driven organization is, but it is way easier if you join forces with other BPM enthusiasts. To do so, I’m inviting you to become a member of New Process Pro. New Process Pro New Process Pro is my free community for BPM enthusiasts like you and me. To sign up, just go to NewProcessLab.com/pro
