We have been discussing this question a lot within the past New Process Think Tanks end of 2020. It is our assumption that knowing the Purpose of BPM will inspire people for excellent processes and it will guide us to rethink processes in a more human-centric way. This is why we have applied the Process Purpose Canvas to the “Process of Process Management” itself within several feedback cycles. – Of course, we do what we recommend to others for our own process, too.
Today, I would like to share the current status with you and ask you for your feedback.
The Process Purpose Canvas looks like this:
- From an outside perspective onto the process of process management, the input areas organization’s purpose and strategy are left blank as placeholder. We believe that our generalized purpose statement may fit to any organization.
- To complete the outside perspective, we define employees working in and on the process with their specific needs for information as stakeholders of the BPM process. – Employees also comprise management on all levels of the organization.
- From an inside perspective of the process, we refer to the New Process Principles – for example to trust, involve and empower the people – as our values and behaviors to point out the human-centricity of our approach.
- As core competencies of our process community, we emphasize the expertise of providing tools and methods for managing and improving processes as contribution to fulfill the organization’s purpose.
- To complete the inside perspective, we highlight what we give back to the world as our value proposition. Hereby, we already combine our core competencies and values to serve the stakeholder’s needs by providing a human-centric framework which helps employees to realize their best individual contribution working in and on processes to fulfill the organization’s purpose.
Finally, we combined all parts of the Process Purpose Canvas and put the purpose of the “Process of Process Management” into a first version of a process purpose statement:
“We empower people for their best individual contribution to create processes that realize the organization’s purpose.“
Bam. There it is… Okay, it’s a first version that can certainly be improved. Nevertheless, I’m interested in your opinion: Does the statement resonate with you? Would you phrase it differently? What do you like?
I would love to push the purpose statement even further to inspire people for process management as contribution to the New Process Principle “Inspire people for excellent processes”. May this statement – or updated versions – guide us to develop the best possible New Process Life Cycle and a valuable New Process Toolbox which will support us to rethink processes.
PS: You will find the Process Purpose Canvas in the process “Define process purpose” within the New Process Toolbox.
Update – Feb 2, 2021 – 08:40pm: I picked up Sebastian’s comment on LinkedIn and specified that we have applied the Process Purpose Canvas to the “Process of Process Management” itself as a process on the meta level to manage and improve business processes on an operational level.
