Teaching Agile Policymaking at U.C. Berkeley

Public sector leaders are under growing pressure to respond faster and more effectively to rising economic insecurity, even as policy environments become more complex, politicized, and constrained.

Household economic security sits at the center of this challenge. It is shaped by historical policy choicesand rapidly changing forces such as automation, labor market shifts, and program rollbacks. Leaders must navigate legacy safety net structures, fragmented data, and competing narratives, all while making decisions in real time.

Many practitioners lack practical methods for:

• Understanding how today’s safety net emerged and why it functions as it does
• Mapping the systems and power dynamics shaping economic security outcomes
• Designing policies and programs that can adapt to change
• Turning timely data into decision-ready insights
• Communicating policy ideas clearly enough to build support and drive action

This course, delivered for M.P.A. students at the U.C. Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, was created to meet that gap by helping leaders build the skills needed to design, test, and advance safety net innovations that work.

The learning goals for the course included: 

• Understand the safety net as civic infrastructure. Build a deep, interdisciplinary understanding of safety net policies and how they are shaped by social, economic, and institutional forces.
• Analyze complex policy systems with confidence. Apply agile policy analysis and systems-thinking methods to assess safety net policies and programs using evidence, causal reasoning, and systems mapping.
• Design and evaluate modern safety net programs. Develop practical skills for creating, improving, and evaluating programs using agile design principles, logic models, and fit-for-purpose data systems.
• Communicate policy ideas that move decisions. Research and persuasively communicate innovative safety net policies through clear, compelling narratives and decision-ready policy products.
• Navigate power, ethics, and tradeoffs. Build reflective and ethical perspectives on the political and moral dimensions of safety net policymaking.
• Lead as a policy entrepreneur. Develop the skills to turn ideas into action by shaping policies, programs, regulations, and organizational change within public institutions.

By the end of the course, every student had developed a concrete policy innovation to improve safety net delivery. Each participant produced an in-depth policy brief and pitch deck designed to be presented to real policymakers, and left with practical methods for analyzing policy change, designing responsive programs, and communicating recommendations clearly enough to influence decisions.

Student Testimonials include: 

“The systems thinking exercises were a breakthrough for me. I finally understood how to map the forces shaping economic security and identify where policy can actually move the needle.”

“Dr. Arvizu created a learning environment that helped me stretch without feeling overwhelmed. Her examples made complex concepts clear and usable.”

“The instruction was thoughtful and grounded in real practice. I appreciated how Dr. Arvizu linked every tool to the real constraints public agencies face.”

“One of the most immediately applicable courses I’ve taken. I already know how I’ll use these frameworks with my team.”

“I walked into this course unsure if I had the skills to be a policy entrepreneur. I left knowing that I do.”