German public administration has its own universities, its own career tracks and its own body of administrative law governing how decisions must be reached. Procedure is the subject matter, not the overhead.
One word for procedure
The German Verfahren covers a procedure, a legal proceeding, a manufacturing method and an administrative process. One noun for the ordered way of getting from a beginning to an end, used across law, industry and government alike.
The procedure instruction
The Verfahrensanweisung. A controlled document with a number, an author, an approval and a revision history, describing how a defined activity is carried out. It is part of the system, and changing it means going through the system.
The quality management system
German firms across manufacturing and services hold ISO 9001 certification, audited externally at intervals, covering documented processes for every activity that affects quality. Certification is frequently a condition of being a supplier at all.
The process owner
German organisations appoint a Prozessverantwortlicher for each process, named in the quality system, responsible for its definition, review and improvement. The process has a person attached to it in the same way a product line does.
The service path
The service path. The German term for the prescribed sequence through which a matter travels upward. Going around it — am Dienstweg vorbei — is itself a breach, separate from whatever the underlying complaint was.
Definition of processes
Ein Prozess ist ein Satz von in Wechselbeziehung oder Wechselwirkung stehenden Tätigkeiten, der Eingaben in Ergebnisse umwandelt. A process is a set of activities which are interrelated, interdependent, influence each other mutually, and turn inputs into results.
The Bavarian Ministry for Commerce defines a process as: „The sequence of all activities which are linked with each other and convert inputs – based on customer requirements, legal boundary conditions, market demands – into a desired outcome.“
Simply put, a process is a set of work steps, which are sequenced logically, that have a beginning and lead to a specific desired outcome.
German artisans
Germans believe that processes — how the work is done — are the key to success. Americans, however, favor relationships, or how to gain and retain customers.
By tradition, Germany is more a culture of artisans (Handwerkerkultur) than of traders (Händlerkultur). The Germans have always made things. And they believe that process — how the work is done — is the key to success. Good processes lead to good products, bad processes to bad ones.
One well-known German manager, Klaus-Hardy Mühdeck, the CIO of ThyssenKrupp, is even nicknamed the Prozesspapst, the Process Pope, and has changed his title to Chief Process Officer. Because processes govern the internal workings of a company, whoever has the say over process has the say over how the work is done, and thus over the company. As the Germans see it process is power. And Germans want the power. Who doesn’t?
Max Weber – Bureaucracy
Ever heard of Max Weber (1864-1920)? He was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist. Weber is among the most important theorists on the development of modern Western society. He saw himself not as a sociologist, but as an historian. What did Weber write about bureaucracy:
That it constitutes the most efficient and rational way to organize human activity. Bureaucracy means systematic processes and organized hierarchies, which are necessary to: maintain order, maximize efficiency, and eliminate favoritism.
Bureaucracy
1. Non-elected government officials. Administrative policy-making group. 2. Specialization of functions, adherence to fixed rules, hierarchy of authority. 3.A system of administration marked by officialism, red-tape and proliferation. From French bureaucratie: bureau desk and –cratie a kind of government. (MerriamWebster)