Strategy Implementation Challenges on Devolved Funds: a Case Study of Kajiado South Constituency Cdf

Abstract

Strategy formulation and development is the development of long term plans for the effective management of opportunities and threats in light of the organization's strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand strategy implementation is the process that turns implementation strategies and plans into actions to accomplish objectives. The study aimed at establishing the strategy implementation challenges on devolved funds at Kajiado South Constituency CDF. In addition, the study wished to determine the measures that have been taken by the CDF management to overcome the same challenges. Towards the realization of the same objective, a case study research design was adopted whereby the researcher interviewed six managers of the constituency CDF who had different academic qualification and years of experiences in managing the CDF projects. The data was collected through the use of the interview guide that was prepared to guide the researcher on the challenges affecting strategy implementation and the measures taken to overcome the challenges. The findings from the study suggest that the constituency CDF faces a number of challenges ranging from; slow decision making process, inadequate resources, cultural interference in some instances, lack of proactive leadership and non involvement of all the stakeholders in strategy implementation. In addition, other challenges included employees not committing themselves to support a new strategic plan from the start to its completion including review and supporting its recommendation, changing the strategy mid-stream to suit their focus. The measures taken to overcome the challenges

include training employees on project evaluation and monitoring, involvement of all the stakeholders in strategy formulation, sourcing for additional funding to finalize on incomplete projects as well as limiting political interference in the management of the constituency CDF and adopting affirmative action to reduce gender imbalance. Strategy formulation and implementation process is very vital for the functioning of any organization. Therefore, an organization should put in place adequate mechanism of incorporating the views of all the stakeholders in the development of the strategies and that for a successful implementation of the same strategies, the organization should be able to identify the challenges that will hinder the successful implementation of its strategies. In addition, the management team should be able to build in a monitoring and evaluation mechanism of telling when the strategy objectives are not being realized. From this, the organization should be able come up with appropriate measure to overcome the challenges early enough before the affects much the realization of its objectives.