In eight modules to agile public authority work

An agile footing can go a long way to succeeding

By Benjamin Seibel and Yi Jun Huang

We’re all familiar with it: the inevitable trip to a public authority and all the bother it involves. Neither citizens nor administration employees are to blame for the fact that this type of experience is not generally very pleasant. While citizens struggle with complicated forms, administrative staff themselves face major challenges, too: as public sector employees, they are under considerable pressure to drive innovation forward. As the processes are now restructured and
digitized, it’s vital to address diverse target groups externally as well as cooperate internally across departments and authorities.

For this to succeed, the right know-how and methodological expertise are needed – which is where our Service Agent training program comes in. This is a further education format for employees of the Berlin administration that is being conceived and implemented in collaboration with the Chair of Design at HTW Berlin (Prof. Daniela Hensel and Johanna Götz). The program aims to enable public servants to create processes using service design methods, giving them an entire toolkit full of the latest agile work methods.
The new Service Agent training program website offers an impression of what this looks like in practice. It provides
not only an outline of the benefits of service design but also insights into eight modules dedicated to agile work methods, including background information, concrete real-world examples, worksheets to get you started, and links to further resources.