Dates: 

• 1 - 5 September 2025 - London (£2,850)
• 9 - 13 March 2026 - London (£2,850)
• 24 - 28 August 2026 - London (£2,850)

Workshop Outline

This five-day course equips public sector managers with the mindset, tools and practical confidence to lead teams through uncertainty, respond quickly to changing priorities, and deliver better outcomes for citizens, service users and communities. The programme combines agile principles, public value, collaborative leadership, service improvement, stakeholder engagement and responsive decision-making.

Across the programme, participants explore how agile values, principles and behaviours can be applied in a public sector context to create public value, respond to complexity and meet changing citizen expectations while maintaining accountability. The course strengthens responsive leadership and adaptive decision-making by helping managers make timely, evidence-informed choices, prioritise effectively and respond constructively to political, financial and operational pressures. It also examines how to build empowered, resilient and collaborative teams through clear roles, short planning cycles, cross-functional working, continuous learning and psychological safety.

Participants consider effective stakeholder engagement and change management involving elected members, partners, residents, staff, unions, suppliers and community groups, with particular attention to transparent communication, difficult conversations and managing resistance with empathy. The programme concludes by focusing on practical ways to embed agility and continuous improvement through feedback loops, performance data, retrospectives, proportionate risk management and action planning that transfers learning into day-to-day workplace practice.

Workshop Objectives: 

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Explain what agile and responsive management means in a public sector context.
• Apply agile principles to service improvement, policy implementation and operational delivery.
• Lead teams through ambiguity, change and competing priorities with confidence and integrity.
• Use evidence, insight and feedback to make quicker and better-informed decisions.
• Prioritise work according to public value, risk, statutory duties and user need.
• Improve collaboration across departments, agencies, partners and communities.
• Support staff wellbeing, motivation and performance during periods of change.
• Develop practical action plans to embed continuous improvement in their own service area.

Key Topics

• Agile values, principles and behaviours for public service leadership.
• Public value, citizen-centred services and ethical decision-making.
• Managing complexity, uncertainty and rapid changes in demand.
• Prioritisation techniques for constrained public sector environments.
• Short planning cycles, iterative delivery and learning through feedback.
• Scrum, Kanban and Lean concepts adapted for non-technical and service environments.
• Empowering teams while maintaining governance, assurance and accountability.
• Stakeholder mapping, partnership working and collaborative problem-solving.
• Communication strategies for change, challenge and difficult conversations.
• Using data, insight and performance information to guide decisions.
• Risk, compliance and safeguarding considerations in agile delivery.
• Building resilient teams and supporting wellbeing during transformation.
• Retrospectives, continuous improvement and sustaining momentum after the course.

Who Is It For?

This course is designed for leaders, managers and service leads working central, state and local government, and other sector organisations. It is particularly suitable for those who need to respond to changing policy priorities, budget pressures, rising service demand, digital transformation, inspection requirements, partnership working and community expectations.