So What Would a "Brisbane Ultimate Stategic Plan" Involve?

Stepping out of the normally impersonal stately Brisbane Ultimate Blog mansion here - yes, its a chat on the street with JdR.

So following this post and associated email and talking to folks, I was asked by a couple of people as to what this might look like.

The most important thing that I want to see if a *process*. Even if this thing comes up with things I completely disagree with, I will be happy if we've done something through a good process.

This strategic plan thing is about deciding as a *volunteer* group where we want Ultimate in Brisbane to go in the future, what we think we should prioritise to make this happen, and by implication, what sacrifices we’re willing to make to make this happen (by sacrifice, I mean “instead of putting my volunteer effort into doing solely what I think we should do on my own, I will aim to cooperate and put my volunteer effort towards the things the group (of which I am a part) is keen on.”)

Ie – this is about generating a collective agreement about what we want and what we want to do about it, and the volunteer group committing to it, and in particular not revisiting it unless things change drastically.

To try to get people to abstract from their personal commitments to the present (or the current status quo), its also typical of a strategic plan that it doesn’t start for a while. Hence, my thinking for this one is that we do the work in the second quarter of 2010, and implement for 2011-2013.

A plan like this is also desirably consistent and relatively simple. Consistent so that a new person can pick it up and understand it, and also to harmonise people’s effort over time (ie not waste effort doing something that doesn’t fit, distracts people or just plain goes against the effort of other people). Simple so that you don’t over-do it.

Committing to it is also about conserving effort. If we agree now our plan for the next three years, then we’re also saying we’re not going to spend time and effort doing this again until its done or something drastically unexpected changes.

I’m not really wed to what the Plan should involve – the important bit is that we have a process and that people are willing to give and take and agree to something that is “best for Ultimate in Brisbane”.

I could leave this post here, because as I've written above, the important thing to me is that we do it. Its secondary what it contains. But then I'm willing to offer some ideas on that too, to sketch out some things that I think people might want to address.

What is the goal of Ultimate in Brisbane? We need to discuss this and see if we all have a common goal. Personally, I think it is ‘growth’ in player numbers. Other possible goals – doing well on the National stage, developing quality play, having fun, increasing legitimacy of the sport, establishing stability/consistency in administration/fields/etc, giving existing players more opportunities to play – all of these can be interpreted in terms of growth

What is the scope of such a plan? I’d suggest the focus of the plan be about Leagues in Brisbane - things that are conceivably under the control of a single administrative structure (hopefully BUDA). Tournaments and other things that happen within the Brisbane geographic area are things that are accessible to non-Brisbane players, or need to be consistent with things that are done outside of Brisbane. So these other things can be left to QUDA or AFDA to concern themselves with. So we're talking here about BPL, WUFL and BUML and possibly local pickup. UQL could be in if the UQ Club wants to.

What are some of the key issues? If people are agreed that growth of League play is the goal, then this leads us into a variety of issues.

Do we grow the existing Leagues, or do we establish new Leagues, or do we do both?

I think in reality we do both. A “League” is to a degree an administrative construct. What we need to do to grow though is to establish new playing centres in time and space – these may well be part of a larger administrative structure (eg part of a larger League like BUML) or be a separate League sitting under BUDA.

Growing existing Leagues is easiest, as you’ve got the administration in place, you just need to cope with more people. Currently, we don’t really try very hard to grow our existing Leagues in my humble opinion. League growth has really just come from “Ultimate is a good product” (aka word of mouth aka people liking it and bringing their friends along).

To grow existing Leagues at a speed or rate beyond this, you can prioritise (ie pick one or two to focus on):
- effort on advertising/promotion (eg recruitment)
- effort to ensure the existing League is well run (eg clear start and finish dates)
- effort to support the creation of new teams (eg incentivise experienced players to help)
- effort to develop the quality of play (eg coaching, establish divisions, recognise on field success)

I’d also say that in Brisbane we do a poor job of establishing new Leagues. There is a sense that if someone wants to establish a new League, then they’re sent off into the wilderness on their own to make a go of it. Unsurprisingly, they fail or recognise its not even worth trying. Its very very hard to do everything on your own - find fields, recruit new players, try to persuade experienced players to come over, actually run the League - all while still trying to play your own Ultimate and do whatever else you do with your time.

Setting up a new League in my mind requires more effort, support and possibly sacrifice from the wider Ultimate community. This could include:
- survey existing players to find out where and when they would commit to a new League. Essentially, who is sick of driving the distance they do to play in a new League, or who would prefer to play on a different night?
- use existing League money to subsidise the new League to help it establish itself. This may be controversial but we generally agree we all benefit from more Ultimate. Making the new League a lot cheaper while it gets established (this may take several seasons) is essential, really, and making existing Leagues slightly more expensive to do this is reasonable if growth is the aim.
- change existing Leagues to make ‘space’ for the new League, so that it can attract existing teams and players. Eg, change a night, delay the start date of an existing League so that existing players will go try the new League

This brings me to a common point of discussion at the pub is that if only BPL and WUFL (which have separate player pool in Open and Women) were on the same night, then that would create a spare night for a new league to start and prosper in. Exactly true. People find this quite hard to approach though, as we’re pretty comfortable with the way things are.

The challenge for putting both on the same night is a) inertia - which can be countered by agreeing now that this change desirable, but also agreeing that the change wouldn’t come in to force until some time later (eg early 2011) and b) fields - for which I’d put in the plan that if we can find enough fields to put BPL and WUFL on the same night (it’d be nice if they were near each other, but not necessary), then that’s the night they’d move to – ie if someone can find 5-6 Ultimate pitches worth of space on Tuesday night, then both Leagues can be on Tuesday. If someone can find the same space on Thursday, then move to Thursday. Those who don't want to move are now motivated to find fields on their prefered night ....

I think most people agree that BUML can and will grow, and the long term goal is to increase the number of divisions so that people can get quality games. Having individuals just play one division, and establishing promotion/relegation in this League would improve competition. Having a goal of standard maximum number of teams per division also would help manage seasons and support levels of quality (eg max 6 teams in Div 1, max 12 in Div 2, any number in Div 3).

I've also written and spoken elsewhere of where I think BPL could go in terms of working towards two divisions, clubs where individuals compete and are developed, and where those clubs compete in areas outside BPL.

I say a "goal" here, and this is an important point throughout - that we're setting a general place we want to get to, without necessarily saying how we'll get there or when, or even what the goal will look like in detail.

A further challenge for Brisbane Ultimate is I think generating the desired level of volunteer resources. In one element, there is competition for these resources as many volunteers in Brisbane are attracted and able to act on the state (QUDA) or national (AFDA) level. Many people have recognised that establishing a ‘club structure’ can help resolve this. People will generally volunteer for something that is ‘close’ to them. At the moment, not many people feel close to the 400 or so regular players in Brisbane. But they would feel closer to the 10-50 or so people in their club. Other cities have been very successful in establishing formal clubs to motivate people to help and make their competitions easier to manage. Brisbane should consider this closely, and work out what might be best suited to it.

A more formal Club structure can also improve the quality of Ultimate played. Eg people are more willing to help develop a fellow clubmate than they are a random stranger. On the other hand, we need to balance this with our roots of being welcoming to everyone, and the strength that we get from being one large common and friendly community.


So there's some of the things I think I'm talking about in terms of a Brisbane Ultimate Strategic Plan.

a) Its a record of lengthy discussion amongst interested people, followed by an agreement about how to move forward on our shared desires and goals.

b) And I've gone ahead and sketched some of the things I'd like to see discussed - that I think we want to grow, and how we want to grow by giving more support to new Leagues, enhancing our existing Leagues, and establishing clubs more clearly to take the volunteer load of recruiting and developing players and managing competiton.

Thanks for reading, and having an interest in more than "I just want to play."