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Getting to Agile at Scale in the Public Sector
May 30, 2025
Agile ways of working in government have become a hot topic. But are public sector agencies really going agile? Where and how extensively is agile taking hold? And is it delivering value? These questions continually crop up in our discussions with public sector leaders. To help demystify the topic, BCG conducted a set of interviews and surveys with executives at 23 global, federal, and state public sector institutions in Australia, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. The study revealed a remarkable uptake of agile in the public sector.
- Nine in ten public sector agencies are using agile, nearly half of them for more than two years.
- IT, policymaking, and service delivery are popular places to deploy agile.
- About 40% have at least one division, ranging in size from about 100 to several thousand employees, using agile as its primary way of working, but few have scaled agile across the enterprise.
- Agencies that have adopted agile are delivering services up to 50% faster and improving citizens’ satisfaction by up to 25%.
In short, agile has arrived in the public sector. To keep making progress in adopting agile as its primary way of working, agencies should move beyond practices such as the “daily stand-up” status check-ins, and put in place enablers such as senior leadership support, new funding models, and training.