Delivering and managing change in the public sector is difficult. Public services are fraught with complexity and often provide support to some of the most vulnerable people in society. Planning change projects in a linear way using traditional project management approaches (such as PRINCE2) often holds organisations back from learning and refining their changes throughout the process. The project managers overseeing traditional change projects often find themselves being hostages of fortune to an out of date project plan that needs constant maintenance to ‘look’ as though it is on track.

So how can public services deliver change in an environment that is constantly evolving?

Agile is an alternative to the traditional waterfall project management approach (the one where you invent a master plan and try and present the finished product to stakeholders a year later). Agile has been used for over a decade in the information technology sector and is arguably the standard approach for some of the world’s most innovative tech organisations (think Sportify and Netflix).

We believed that Agile was perhaps even more suited to transforming public services than it is for the IT world because it thrives in a world of complexity. We have tried, tested, and improved the approach (we think) on real projects in public services. We’ve developed this course because we genuinely believe that taking an Agile approach to delivery in the public sector leads to much better results, more social value, and crucially improved outcomes for citizens.

The course

The Agile Master for Public Services is an immersive training programme, held over two days, which blends theory and practical exercises to develop a thorough working knowledge of Agile and how it can be used to deliver complex change projects within the public sector.

At this point, we’d usually set out what people learn on each day of the programme, but we run the training itself as an Agile project. Delegates take on the different roles within an Agile project and they choose what to work through and when (just like an Agile team – this will make sense when you do the training). Our experience is that this really helps to embed learning.

What people say about the Agile Master in Public Services

“Agile has helped us deliver fantastic quality projects at real pace. We have multiple simultaneous projects running at the same time, as well as a need to achieve our usual day to day business with energy and speed, and Agile helps us deliver both. More importantly, it creates a real excitement and energy that inspires teams to want to get involved in delivering change”.

Louise Duffield, Head of Business Support & Acting Head of Customer Services, Waltham Forest

“The team are feeling extremely energised after the Agile Master in Public Services training, delivered by Basis. We are now in the process of identifying some projects that we’d like to run using the new Agile approach so that we can embed it within overall programme delivery. The reaction to Agile has been so positive that we have launched “The Agile Factory” which is a weekly forum where all training cohorts can come together and discuss their experiences of bringing Agile to life in Haringey”.

Andrew Rostom, Head of Corporate Programmes and PMO, Haringey

Is the course accredited?

Absolutely. The course is accredited by the Public Service Transformation Academy (PSTA). Participants are required to take a short test following the course in order to qualify for the accreditation.

Faculty leads

Dennis Vergne

Developed through his experience, research, programme design and delivery, Dennis is a recognised organisational change expert. Dennis has a passion for enabling transformational change that sticks, turning ideas into effective practice and behaviours. He holds an MSc in this field (From Oxford with distinction) and belongs to an international network of reflective change practitioners – www.thechangeleaders.com.

Although he is originally from Holland, since 2004, most of his work has been within the British public sector. His experience also includes (before 2002) strategy and change work for a rather diverse (read: odd) variety of clients such as Belgium Government, Norsk Hydro, Motorola, Novartis and Lloyds TSB. His very first (proper job) was with The Hague Council as a youth worker.

Dennis is a certified and practicing Agile ScrumMaster.

Matt Barnaby

Matt loves what he does. He uses Design Thinking, Agile and Adaptive Leadership to help improve Public Services. The idea is that if he helps to improve those services then someone, somewhere has a shot at a better life.

Matt has over 20 years’ experience in working in Public Services. Some of that time was in Children’s Services, Education and Youth Work. The rest of the time has been delivering transformational change projects in the public sector, financial services, rail and retail. He’s been around the block!

His energy, passion, and expert facilitation techniques allow him to support sustainable change in the most difficult situations.

Matt is also a certified and practicing Agile ScrumMaster.

Rebecca Roberts

Rebecca learnt how to design and deliver creative solutions within a Transformation Team for a West London council, which means she really understands what it is like to be working inside a public-sector organisation that is under pressure to deliver impactful change quickly.

Since then, Rebecca teaches, mentors and provides coaching to teams on how to design and deliver change. With her change experience and knowledge, she can provide post-training coaching, showing teams how to adapt and respond to the challenges of applying their learnings.

Designing and delivering programmes focused on agile service design, prototyping and organisational behaviour change via the Service Transformation Programme or customised internal programmes.

1. Course location is subject to change but will be a central London venue.