A critical analysis of the development of the strategic plan for the Khomas Regional Council
This study undertakes a critical analysis of the development of the strategic plan for the Khomas Regional Council in Namibia. The Khomas Regional Council was randomly selected among the Office Ministries Agencies (OMAs) which had completed their strategic plans at the time this research was carried out. The Khomas Regional Council tru1ed the planning process in September 2007 and completed it in March 2008. The following questions were pertinent: Why did the development of the Khomas Regional Council's strategic plan take considerable time before completion? What challenges were faced by the participants and facilitators in the implementation of the proce ? To an wer the e key questions the study focused on the preparation done and the readiness for the Khomas Regional Council and the level of involvement of the staff members in order to determine the ownership of the proce s. The principal re earch objectives were: (i) To critically analyse the process followed to develop the strategic plan for the Khomas Regional Council with pecific emphasis on, the preparation done to determine the readiness of the pa11icipants and input provided by the Khomas Regional Council management staff during the process; (ii) To identify the main challenge faced by the process a experienced by the participants and the facilitator(s), and (iii) To recommend appropriate intervention to improve the process a informed by the research findings The target population consisted of five members of the Regional Implementation Team (RIT), and two external facilitators (the lead facilitators and facilitator from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM). The total number of seven participants was available a the need arose. A purposive sampling strategy was applied to get the participants for this tudy. The researcher chose a purposive sampling strategy because only the managing team and the strategic facilitators were considered relevant to the objectives of the study. The data were collected through semi structured interview and a desk study. Data was then analy ed by categorisation and interpretation in term of common themes, pattern and meaning . It was concluded that the planning proces la ted for ix months. This wa because it was the first time the Regional Council had to plan u ing the balanced score card frame work and participants did not attend any pre-training workshop as pa1i of their preparation. In addition, there was no fixed programme of activities which made pecification in term of date, month and year to complete the process. All participants agreed that the beginning of the proccs (the development of strategic plans) by the OPM was not cleru·. The study makes the following recommendations. The strategic plan framework need to be updated ba ed on the lessons learned from the offices/Mini Irie /Agencie that have or not completed their trategic plans. The c activities should be covered during the pre-work/ pre planning stage; pre-training for senior manager and all key pai1icipants. The pre-training should cover surveys on customer's needs; re ource analy i ; and some basic information; documents that need to be read for aligning trategic thinking. All relevant document should be made available in good time. The contract and tenn of reference for the consultants need to indicate the duration in term of month , date and not the number of days in general.
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