Services

Programme Development Life Cycle

Although there are a wide variety of methods and techniques that can be used for programme design, we have developed a simple programme life cycle approach that incorporates research, design and formulation, implementation and management, and monitoring and evaluation. The process is iterative and can move between the major stages – for instance from monitoring and evaluation to programme design. We combine a strong focus on academic theory with a grounded practical approach to programme design. Development@Work provides the following services in the formulation and implementation of programmes:

Organisational Development Life Cycle

The concept of the organisational life cycle is a well-established model in the field of organisational development. Borrowed from the life sciences (such as biology), the organisational life cycle model has been used metaphorically in organisational sociology to simplify complex social phenomena.  According to this model, all organisations pass through predictable stages of growth and their strategies, structures and activities correspond with the different stages of growth. We draw on the organisational life cycle concept to analyse organisations and formulate strategies fit for the relevant stage of development. The specific services offered in the Organisational Development Life Cycle include:

Strategic Planning and Performance Framework

Strategic planning in the public sector is different to strategic planning in the private sector in many ways, although some of the techniques developed in the private sector may be usefully applied. Rather than focusing on building competitive advantage, our approach emphasise the building of specialist capacities to achieve the organisation’s policy goals and execute its mandate. An organisation’s specialist capacities should be observable in the same way that differences in the physique of a swimmer and that of a sprinter are observable. Public entities use strategic planning to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty in ways that marry organisational intention with the external environment. Strategy accounts for how the organisation defines the problems it needs to focus on and how it should channel its critical resources to this end. We view strategy as an emergent process that is embedded in organisational practice. We have developed our strategic planning and performance monitoring framework over the last decade base on this conception of strategy in the public sector. The framework is a guide – not a prison. It serves as a map that provides a flexible structure for the planning process in a way that allows organisations to start where they are most comfortable. It has been developed in line with the requirements specified by National Treasury. The framework uses a Theory of Change approach with a means-end hierarchy that indicates the theoretical assumptions used in co-creating the strategic plan.  It explicitly provides the means by which desired outcomes are to be achieved and indicates the relationship between the inputs, activities, outputs and planned outcomes. The strategic planning and performance monitoring method adopts a specific outcomes-focused approach. The benefit of an outcomes-focused approach is that it imposes a stakeholder orientation logic on the organisation since the stakeholders that the organisation seek to impact are placed at the centre of the planning process.StrategicPlanningandPerformanceFramework The framework imposes a logic of collaboration on the organisation. Public organisations often do not have all the resources required to bring about the desired outcomes so that it needs to collaborate with others to do so. It imposes a logic of long-term planning on the institution since outcomes are frequently only achieved and observed over the medium to long-term. The framework also ensures alignment between the high-level outcomes and strategic priorities of government and the priorities, programmes and outputs of the organisation.