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In my last post I outlined how the bigger the unit of change, the more pessimistic we become about it. That the more abstract the problem, the more distant the fix seems.
The legacy model of running our public services is failing. It’s too often built on the very idea of a grand, centralised, top-down approach. Big plans, huge departments, universal directives – all designed to manage the whole.
But in trying to manage everything, they often end up feeling like they’re managing nothing that truly touches individual lives. They create distance, not connection. They breed compliance, not innovation.
Next week I find myself in the unlikely position of doing a talk at Agile on the Beach. I say unlikely as I’ve sometime been a critic of agile approaches, particularly when applied too rigidly.
Bob Marshall, an early pioneer of agile recently wrote that:
Most agile “transformations” are really just process makeovers. Organisations eagerly adopt the ceremonies, tools, and vocabulary of agile whilst leaving their underlying cultural operating system completely intact. They implement daily standups whilst maintaining rigid approval hierarchies. They create cross-functional teams whilst preserving territorial budget processes. They preach customer collaboration whilst rewarding individual performance metrics that encourage hoarding information and credit.
Accordingly, most transformations fail. Bob goes on to say:
This happens because Agile isn’t really about processes—it’s about fundamentally different beliefs about human nature, decision-making, and value creation. True Agile requires a collective belief that:
People closest to the work make better decisions than distant executives
Learning through experimentation beats planning through prediction
Responding to change creates more value than following predetermined plans
Collaboration trumps individual heroics
Very well put. However, the application of agile principles to the development of our place-based teams has been game-changing for the reasons that Bob lays out – that we’ve applied different beliefs within the teams.
Applied outside of tech agile can usher in a fundamental shift from rigid, top-down planning to a dynamic, iterative, and, crucially, person-focused approach.
Think about our place-based working experiments. What we understood, fundamentally, is that the answers to local problems lie locally. We didn’t parachute in an army of consultants with a 200-page report, or do detailed journey maps. Instead, we enabled small, dedicated teams – often just a handful of people – to literally embed themselves within specific communities with a belief, and gave them some power.
Our approach isn’t about rigid five-year plans; it’s about rapid cycles of observation, conversation, trying things out, and learning. That’s agile-lite in action: listening to the ‘customer’ (the residents), delivering small, working solutions (a new community group, a solved local issue), and responding to change as they went.
Core Agile principles, even in a simplified form like we’ve applied, stand in stark contrast to the old ways, offering a path to genuinely transformative public services:
People Over Paper and Processes
Traditional public service is often bogged down by rigid hierarchies, endless approval processes, and a reliance on vast, often outdated, IT systems that dictate how things must be done.
Agile done well rips up that playbook. It emphasises empowering frontline staff and cross-functional teams. Instead of waiting for a complex policy to trickle down from above, an Agile team focused on, say, improving mental health access in a specific neighbourhood would directly interact with service users, local charities, and other local public service providers. This isn’t just about collaboration; it’s about breaking down those silos and valuing the human element over cumbersome procedures. It’s about building trust face-to-face, not form-to-form.
The only bit of ‘new’ technology we utilised in the first prototype was a shared Teams chat. Hardly radical, but transformative to the colleagues who been previously trapped in organisational silos.
Deliver, Don’t Document
Much time is wasted on detailed specifications, extensive reports, and the pursuit of ‘perfect’ plans.
This leads to glacial delivery speeds, and by the time a service actually launches, the needs it was designed for have often completely changed.
Agile focuses on delivering minimum viable products (MVPs) or incremental improvements quickly. MVPs are invaluable for tackling complex social problems because they mitigate risk by enabling cheap, early testing of core assumptions. This allows for validated learning from real users, ensuring solutions are genuinely effective and adaptable, rather than costly, theoretical failures.
Adapt, Don’t Die
In the traditional model, plans and resources are often set in stone. This makes it excruciatingly difficult for public services to adapt to evolving societal needs, new technologies, or unforeseen crises. Agile teams are flexible and adaptable, able to pivot quickly based on new information and user feedback. This means public services can be more responsive and resilient, rather than being constantly behind the curve.
This is the fundamental shift we need to embrace. It’s about recognising that while national frameworks do and will dominate, the actual, meaningful, life-changing events happen at the local level.
Related: Why Community-Led Innovation Fails Without This One Ingredient