Week three

Three weeks have passed already and everything is still going well; I got used to the temperature, have overcome the well-known ‘welcome to Indonesia virus’ and start appreciating the spicy food. The last one is something I am really starting to appreciate. In Indonesia, people are really fond of spicy food. Most dishes are prepared with peppers and served with sambal. In the Netherlands I have always liked sambal, so the first dinner here I immediately put a lot of it on my food… Not a good idea; my eyes became watery and my body started sweating all over. The conclusion: Indonesian sambal is a bit different compared to the Dutch’. After that I became more cautious with the sambal which led to a gradual improvement of sambal-proofness. The resistance is not yet according to Indonesian standards, but it will be within a few weeks. The challenge after that will be eating spicy food the Indonesian way. This means eating raw peppers along the food. Indonesian people can do it easily without sweating or whatsoever, so it is possible!

This week’s activities of my research existed out of studying the project’s documentation and setting up the interviews. Based on this study I am known with the project’s course, involved stakeholders and key decision points. Generally speaking, I am not really fond of doing literature studies, but this time it was different. As I was reading the documents I could relate this practical information to the theory of strategic planning. This comparison aroused all lot of ideas, accompanied by questions. Some of them could be answered by absorbing the documentation even more, others are yet to be answered by the interviews themselves.

With the gained ideas and raised questions I started setting up my question for the interviews. The main difficulty with this was formulating objective questions. This difficulty was caused by the conflict between looking for specific information to comment upon my ideas and leaving room for unexpected insights from the stakeholders. With some help of my supervisors I managed to create a questionnaire with a good balance on this inward struggle.

Another difficulty in setting up the questionnaire was structuring the questions and needed information, since most questions are based on the relations between elements of the strategic planning. To overcome this problem I brought the Strategic Planning Cycle to a higher abstraction level. This reduced the number of elements and thereby facilitated the structuring of questions better. The structuring is still not optimal, but I expect that the interview sessions and their results will enable me to structure all the information eventually.

The next week will be used for travelling through Bali. The purpose of that trip is merely enjoying so the blog will be less concerned with my research and more focused on my Balinese adventure. Bali is described as the best of Java, packed in one small island. This means being constantly surrounded by incredible art & culture, friendliness and amazing nature, I am looking forward to share that with you!

Wim