The Agile Pathway for Policymaking

Agile Policy

Background

While many public programs deliver important results, the context within which they operate continues to evolve significantly. The pace of change, critical public needs, societal polarization, and emerging technologies present both new challenges and opportunities. The status quo of slow-moving processes and over-centralization will not work to address public challenges that require multiple agencies, levels of government, and sectors to work together.

All too often, the public sector has been slow to adapt to major social, cultural, and technological changes. The gap between the public policy promises in legislation and executive branch initiatives and their results is vast and growing.

Unfortunately, policies often fail to achieve their intended results due to several interconnected challenges, including:

• Separation of policy development from implementation,
• Procedural constraints that do not prioritize speed,
• Rigid cultures that stifle innovation,
• Limited capacity in the public sector to achieve intended results, and
• Intergovernmental misalignments across federal, state, and local governments.

Government leaders can still achieve policy results by implementing Agile approaches that increase government responsiveness, transparency, accountability, and effectiveness at all levels. This will require adopting a new mindset, new organizational models, and a stronger focus on results

Agile government allows policy to move at the speed of change to build public trust in the capacity of government to deliver positive results. Agile requires leaders to communicate clear missions and visions based on evidence, reduce unnecessary procedural constraints that hinder progress, build organizational capacity, rigorously track results, and foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

All major activities of government—programs, regulations, and policies—need to incorporate Agile principles to build a government that Americans want, need, and deserve.

Recommendations

Agile policy works in a results-oriented and iterative way to implement solutions to society's challenges that keep pace with evolving needs. It is a process of making and remaking policy, grounded in the recognition that solutions must be tested and continuously adapted to produce the intended results in an ever-changing world. If a policy does not achieve its intended results, as assessed through evidence and user feedback, then it should be iterated on and tested again.

Agile Policy requires Leadership Focused on Setting Priorities and Achieving Results.

• Adopting leadership practices with a rigorous focus on achieving intended results.
• Establishing a clear statement of mission and vision to guide results-driven behavior.
• Reducing unnecessary veto points, establishing priorities among competing objectives, and eliminating unnecessary requirements that hinder achievement of the principal goal.

Agile Policy requires an Iterative and Continuous Process based on Evidence and Feedback.

• Utilizing iterative development to allow for continuous learning and adaptive solutions, including, if needed, teams with cross-functional expertise ranging from policy development to technology and programmatic implementations.
• Implementing a results-driven approach that bases policies and their implementation on empirical evidence.
• Creating feedback loops that include data, user, and public feedback based on the principles of human-centered design.

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