Overview of this Unit

Unit 3 is about using practices and technologies of the digital era to rapidly and continually improve government services and policies.

This material, developed by 'Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age', has been prepared to help university faculty to add digital era skills to the teaching of Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Public Administration programs. All these materials are based on our eight Digital Era Competencies - this unit corresponds most closely to Competency 4.

This is one of eight units that make up a full semester course. The units have also been designed to be used by educators independently, without students taking the complete course. This unit can be taught in either one or two classes (breakdowns below).

This Unit's Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcome 1

By the end of Unit 3 a student will be able to differentiate at least two approaches to project management used by governments. The main ones are:

Waterfall
Agile

Learning Outcome 2

By the end of Unit 3 a student will be able to explain what waterfall project management is and its origins. This means being able to:

List and explain some situations in which waterfall approaches are the most appropriate choice for creating public value
Explain why it is challenging to build successful user-centered digital projects using waterfall-based approaches.
Explain the easiest ways to identify a project as being managed with a waterfall approach
Describe a couple of the most common tools used in waterfall projects (e.g., Gantt charts), and those used in Agile projects (e.g Kanban boards).

Learning Outcome 3

By the end of Unit 3 a student will be able to explain what iterative approaches to project management are, and describe their origins. This means being able to: