How do I design processes that stick without becoming bureaucracy?

You can design a process. The hard part you have run into is different: getting people to actually follow it, and keeping it from hardening into red tape as it grows. That is the real test of process design, and most good ideas die right there, unused or overgrown. A process sticks when the people who use it feel it helps them rather than polices them, and it stays lean when you keep asking what it is for. Bureaucracy is what happens when a process outlives its reason and no one is willing to question it. The cure is to design with the users, not for them, and to prune without guilt. So for your next process, bring in the people who will actually use it before you finalize it, and ask what would make this easier for them. Keep only the steps that earn their place. A process people help shape is one they will follow, and one you revisit regularly is one that will not calcify.