It comes after Sir Keir Starmer said in a speech last week that too many civil servants were "comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline".
The speech reflected frustration that some in government have expressed, about the civil service's effectiveness.
Labour adviser Peter Hyman, who came up with Sir Keir's 'missions' but did not follow him into government, wrote in the New Statesman recently that there were "barriers" to delivering the government's agenda, and that it was "astonishing" how many senior civil servants still relied on old-fashioned processes.
In a speech at University College London's Stratford campus in east London, McFadden is expected to say the civil service needs to adopt a new mindset and "make the state a little bit more like a start-up".
He will say that officials will be "empowered to experiment" as part of "test and learn teams" deployed to fine "innovative ways to fix problems".
Two early projects, to begin in January, will see officials asked to improve the delivery of temporary accommodation to homeless families in Essex and Liverpool, and family support in Manchester and South Yorkshire.
The model will then be deployed to help the government hit new "milestones" set out by the prime minister last week, including ending hospital backlogs and improving neighbourhood policing.
