Digital Service Delivery for Leaders and

Our most important public institutions—from the US Government to multilateral NGOs—are struggling to keep pace with technological change. This challenge is creating a crisis of confidence in large institutions and hampering the implementation of policies we need to move our world forward. This course will attempt to equip the next generation of leaders and public policy officials with tools to reform our institutions and deliver policy and digital services that improve outcomes, increase program efficiency, and delight the people that have to use them in the process.

No tech background? No problem. We will cover the fundamentals of digital service design and unpack important concepts like agile development, user-centered design, and iterative testing and learn how to incorporate them into policy work. 

While we will focus most of our analysis on government and large public institutions, the strategies and skills you will learn in this class can be applied to any organization or company in need of change.

This course is focused on developing practical skills across three key areas: First, we will learn the fundamental tech strategies for building successful digital services and how to incorporate them into your work. Second, we will examine historical policy barriers and reimagine the policy development process with an eye towards implementation in the digital era.  And third, we will explore tactics to navigate bureaucracy and create change in large organizations. 

During the semester you will have an opportunity to learn from and engage with some of the industry’s top leaders and change agents during our case studies and lectures, including several of the authors from the course readings.