From Strudel Beats to BPM Streets: Mirko Kloppenburg on Process Culture & Orchestration

In this episode of the BPM360 Podcast, hosts Caspar and Russell kick off with autumn vibes, coding beats in strudel.cc, and the parallels between creative open-source communities and process-management ecosystems. The discussion leads into a special segment: a live, on-site interview with Mirko Kloppenburg, returning to the show directly from Celonis Celosphere.

Mirko shares his impressions from the event, including the atmosphere of reunion, the buzz around process orchestration, and insights from hosting his standing-room-only brain date on building a process-driven organization. Together, Caspar and Mirko dive into the realities of cultural change, the pitfalls of oversimplified BPM narratives, and the increasing convergence of process management, mining, and orchestration technologies — while staying skeptical about fully replacing specialized operational systems.

Back in the studio, Russell and Caspar reflect on Mirko’s perspectives: the time it takes to build true process culture, the challenges of best-of-breed vs. best-of-suite, and how organizations like Techniker Krankenkasse structure their internal BPM and automation functions for success. The episode ends with a shared conviction: process excellence is as much about people and culture as it is about software.

⭐ Top 5 Takeaways

1) Culture eats BPM for breakfast.
Building a process-driven organization takes time and relies far more on mindset, shared language, and process ownership than on tools alone.
2) Convergence doesn’t mean replacement.
Even as process mining, modeling, and orchestration converge in platforms, core operational systems won’t simply disappear — API-driven integration remains key.
3) Simplicity attracts, complexity sustains.
Like Strudel’s web version vs. its deeper coding layers, BPM needs both: fast wins to excite people and strong governance to keep things running.
4) Community matters as much as technology.
Events like Celosphere succeed because they bring people together — cross-pollinating ideas, experiences, and practical lessons that pure tooling can’t deliver.
5) Best-of-breed vs. best-of-suite is still an open battle.
Large organizations seek harmony across mining, architecture, BPM, and orchestration — but finding the right compromise often matters more than choosing one camp.

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