About us
The founders of this academy share some core beliefs:
That most of the problems the public sector is dealing with have a significant underlying level of complexity. This complexity differs – it can arise from having to deal with multiple stakeholders, from complex citizen needs, from a need for cultural or behavioural change, or from a complex system of organisations that need to work together. Often, all these sources contribute to the complexity at the same time.
That the most effective way to achieve change, therefore, is not to spend a vast amount of time analysing and crafitng brilliant PowerPoint solutions. It is to analyse, design, implement, and review – but quickly. It is to iterate solutions and put real changes into practice straight away, in a controlled manner. It is about real change – step by step. It follows Kurt Lewin’s dictum that ‘you only understand a system when you start to change it’. Change early, change often is our motto.
We come from different backgrounds and are experts in different disciplines: organisational development, software development, lean, leadership development, change management, and public sector transformation. We share a passion for the public sector, and we know from experience that a more agile approach to transformation leads to more sustainable results. We are in the process of forming a board for the academy.
Our manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of improving services by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working prototypes over comprehensive business cases
Customer centred design over painstaking analysis
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
* with affectionate respect to www.agilemanifesto.org
Our purpose
Agile approaches using techniques like scrum and lean rapid improvement events are more effective than traditional ‘waterfall’ methods in changing complex public services. Yet they are often not well described or taught in the public sector.
We at The Public Service Transformation Academy want to change this. We will:
Translate effective techniques from other sectors into effective change approaches in public services, based on our own experience
Provide training which is specific to public service, and an accredited path of practice
Share methods and practice and act as a forum for discussion and reflection, to enable continual improvement through continual learning