Agile Administration Seminar - WS 2018/19

This MA seminar is aimed at students with an interest in combining research-based theories with problem-oriented contents of administrative research. Due to the changes in society, public administrations are faced with the challenge of reacting quickly to new circumstances, adapting their internal processes and responding responsively to citizens' wishes. Among the short term challenges that the public administration has to face with innovative means are, for example, coping with the refugee crisis (from 40,000 cases per year to ~ 800,000), the ageing of society and thus the administrative staff, as well as the digital transformation, such as the introduction of the e-file. This agile form of administration means that internal standard processes change, new forms of leadership competencies emerge and an 'upskilling' of administrative staff to manage the transition from traditional paper-based processes to automated online services.
The students first acquire basic knowledge derived from theory on topics such as agility, responsiveness and adaptivity of public administration. Methodically, the students become familiar with the basics of qualitative social research and learn focus group research with the aim of assessing the current needs of administrative staff. In the analysis phase, the students identify the patterns that have developed from the interactions in the focus group discussion and use these insights to prepare a World Café for the administrative staff in order to arrive at possible solutions.
The newly generated data through the two phases of the interviews then serve as input for the public administration in order to stimulate change processes with the input of the administrative employees. In each of the described phases, the students document the results and summarize them in a scientific poster.

Digital Transformation Seminar - SS 2018

This BA in-depth seminar is aimed at students with an interest in combining research-based theories with problem-oriented contents of administrative research. According to the Tallinn Declaration of e-Government (2017), public administrations in Europe face the challenge of making digital services available to citizens and other stakeholders.  The students first acquire basic knowledge derived from theory on topics such as the digitisation of public administration, co-production of public services and human-centred design. Based on the theoretical findings, they work in groups together with the process managers of public administration to develop the current course of a selected administrative process. In this phase, the students identify the users together with the process managers and then conduct user interviews. The newly generated data through the two phases of the interviews then serve as input for the redesign of the administrative processes. In each of the described phases the students document the results on a medium blog, so that on the one hand the process managers are informed transparently about the progress and on the other hand the students learn to write for digital media and to secure their intermediate results. With the help of a project management trainer, the students learn interdisciplinary team skills and project management, which they can use for the concrete research project and also for other seminars.