Collaborative competences for agile public servants: A case study on public sector innovation fellowships

Abstract

In times of crisis and with the increase of new ways of working, public sector organisations increasingly include agile practices in their working practices. To successfully transform public sector organisations into agile organisations, public servants require a new set of competences. Informal learning is a key element that helps public servants to build and apply these competences, e.g., through the collaboration with external experts in public sector innovation fellowships. To observe how collaborative competences for agile public organisations can be developed successfully by involving external experts, I conducted a case study on two iterations of a public sector innovation fellowship. My findings show that throughout the fellowships, competences are being developed in a collaborative process on a personal and organisational level. The practical application of the learned methods, personal reflection, and the development of organisational networks transform the collaborative into a learning process, allowing public servants to develop new competences and bring them into their organisation.