Leading Transformation: two dated learning routes
Leading Transformation is the Public Service Transformation Academy’s programme. RedQuadrant’s Tool Shed is a supported practitioner learning and application offer using related content. The original 24-module architecture is retained here alongside the revised route agreed on 6 September 2026.
Leading Transformation programme · RedQuadrant Tool Shed
Revised route: 6 September 2026
The five worlds are perspectives with cross-links: leadership and political; citizen; service; management; learning and change. Five Core Practices recur throughout. Live work begins in module 3, service prototyping in module 12, and the Four Dynamics are introduced in module 4 and applied in module 18. The final simulation requires a substantial delivery block and hundred-day follow-through.
| Module | Focus and world | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Transformation and the five worlds Leadership and political | Read a live transformation challenge through leadership, citizens, services, management, and learning. |
| 2 | Purpose, outcomes, and useful measures Leadership and political | Agree purpose, distinguish outputs from outcomes, and choose measures that help people act. |
| 3 | Your practice as a transformation agent Learning and change | Contract for useful work, examine your own contribution, and start a live practice challenge. |
| 4 | Power, responsibility, and distributed leadership Leadership and political | Work with power, accountability, and distributed leadership; introduce the Four Dynamics. |
| 5 | Honest, productive conversations Learning and change | Practise listening, productive challenge, difficult conversations, and clear agreements. |
| 6 | Systems inquiry, mapping, and method choice Learning and change | Frame a useful inquiry, map different perspectives, and choose methods for the situation. |
| 7 | Citizen insight and behaviour in context Citizen | Gather citizen insight and examine behaviour in its social and practical context. |
| 8 | Strengths, community, and co-production Citizen | Work with strengths, community assets, co-production, and Positive Deviance. |
| 9 | Demand, access, and prevention Service | Understand demand, access, avoidable work, and opportunities for prevention. |
| 10 | Relational public services Citizen | Organise around people’s lives, relationships, and needs that cross service boundaries. |
| 11 | Designing services and the work behind them Service | Connect the citizen’s experience with service design, processes, and the work behind them. |
| 12 | Prototyping and learning through action Learning and change | Test service ideas through prototypes and small experiments, then use what happens to improve them. |
| 13 | Lean, flow, and operational learning Service | Apply lean, flow, A3 inquiry, and operational tools with respect for the people doing the work. |
| 14 | Resource Optimisation and choices about work Management | Make effort and capacity visible, and use Resource Optimisation and Seven Ways to examine choices. |
| 15 | Costs, benefits, and business cases Management | Connect activity, costs, benefits, and options in a defensible business case. |
| 16 | Digital, data, and AI judgement Service | Judge digital, data, and AI proposals against service purpose, evidence, and human responsibility. |
| 17 | Understanding and designing viable organisations Management | Use the Viable System Model to examine autonomy, coordination, and organisational viability. |
| 18 | The Four Dynamics, roles, and organisation design Management | Apply the Four Dynamics to roles, relationships, authority, and organisation design. |
| 19 | Culture, change, and meeting the other Management | Work with culture, assumptions, identity, and encounters with people who see things differently. |
| 20 | Convening across communities and organisations Citizen | Build the relationships and conditions for action across communities and organisations. |
| 21 | Strategy, commissioning, and choices about provision Leadership and political | Use Patterns of Strategy, commissioning, and provision choices to connect intent with action. |
| 22 | Facilitating groups and designing interventions Learning and change | Choose and facilitate group processes, and design interventions that fit their setting. |
| 23 | Delivering, embedding, and evaluating change Learning and change | Plan delivery, use Appreciative Inquiry and Breaking the Shell, and evaluate and embed change. |
| 24 | Integration, simulation, and the next hundred days Learning and change | Bring the repertoire together through simulation and a substantial hundred-day follow-through. |
Original route: 2020-2025 source versions
The final column is an AI-assisted editorial correspondence between the public summaries. It helps readers find material across versions; it does not claim formal equivalence. New emphases include explicit relational public services, digital/data/AI judgement, and the Four Dynamics.
| Original module | Title and content | Related revised modules |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction and overview The five worlds, outcomes, Seven Ways to Save and Improve, and a hundred-day plan. | 1, 2, 14, 24 |
| 2 | Transformation and the possibilities of organisations Purpose, hierarchy, distributed leadership, accountability, and the possibilities of organisational life. | 4, 17, 18 |
| 3 | System leadership: purpose and measures Shared purpose, technical and adaptive challenges, viable systems, and measures that inform action. | 2, 17 |
| 4 | Leading in complexity: the uses of power Power, commitment, contracting, action inquiry, and leading change without complete control. | 3, 4 |
| 5 | People in systems Relationships, adult development, resilience, and support for the change practitioner. | 3, 19 |
| 6 | The limits of methods Consulting judgement, assumptions, context, and learning by trying ideas in the real world. | 3, 6 |
| 7 | Mapping systems Rich pictures, soft systems, system dynamics, archetypes, and the uses and limits of diagrams. | 6 |
| 8 | Understanding organisations Service views, organisational maturity, business models, and the Viable System Model. | 17 |
| 9 | Designing organisations Service architecture, operating models, delegation, roles, tasks, and decision authority. | 11, 18 |
| 10 | Shaping culture Understanding culture and working on the conditions that reproduce it. | 19 |
| 11 | Citizen and customer insight Purpose, needs, co-design, journey mapping, listening, focus groups, and customer safaris. | 7, 8, 11 |
| 12 | Behavioural insight and strengths-based approaches Behaviour, community assets, strengths, and Positive Deviance. | 7, 8 |
| 13 | Understanding demand Demand analysis, provision and supply, and the fit between a need and a service channel. | 9 |
| 14 | Understanding and designing services Seven Ways to Save and Improve, activity and process analysis, Resource Optimisation, and service design. | 11, 14 |
| 15 | Cost analysis and building the business case Activity-based costing, options, and a business case that connects resources to the work. | 15 |
| 16 | A deep dive into lean Purpose, flow, respect for people, A3 thinking, waste, inquiry, and the risks of applying tools mechanically. | 13 |
| 17 | Prototyping Principles and practical approaches for testing service changes through rapid prototypes. | 12 |
| 18 | Delivering change Readiness, appreciative timelines, Breaking the Shell, project and risk management, and learning loops. | 23 |
| 19 | Communications and stakeholder management Listening, vision, objections, stakeholder mapping, and working in a political setting. | 5, 20 |
| 20 | Understanding people Responses to threat and reward, and practical ways of engaging people through change. | 7, 19 |
| 21 | Managing change positively Appreciative Inquiry, action learning, force-field analysis, and constructive conversations. | 5, 23 |
| 22 | Embedding change Ownership, process management, benefits, outcomes, and the distinction between targets and useful measures. | 2, 23 |
| 23 | Strategy and change Learning, Patterns of Strategy, scenarios, whole-system processes, commissioning, and delivery arrangements. | 21 |
| 24 | Recap and summary Review the repertoire, its application, and what the participant will take forward. An immersive simulation can be added to a blended programme. | 24 |
Follow the concepts
Viable System Model · Lean: operational learning · Patterns of Strategy · Appreciative Inquiry
The source register distinguishes dated curriculum facts from these editorial connections. A module sequence does not establish intellectual influence. Core learning, optional depth, supported application and demonstrated competence remain different things. See the programme providers for current arrangements.
Sources: Original public module register and Revised public module register. Prepared with AI assistance; independent specialist review is not recorded.