In Sport Development, the balanced development of an organisation is the key to success. The research detailed in the following article provides the evidence that supports the development of a readiness assessment tool, available now in Excel. All too often sport organisations take on strategic tasks or accept grants for project that they are not yet ready for. This paper attempted to forewarn developing sport organisations not to jump ahead too quickly and ‘bite off more than they can chew”.
Alas, despite numerous efforts to develop skills and competencies in strategic planning, based on sound environmental assessments, the majority of sport organisations at all levels of development and operations tend to follow their passion before the rationality. Consequently, we still see organisations: Bid to host events they are not ready for; Apply for Grants to do projects they are not ready for; Attempt to take part in events that they are not ready for.
This results in money being wasted and opportunities for real sport development to occur lost. In the worst cases, it results in the building of sport facilities that become white elephants. There are so many of these it won’t be hard to find examples simply by searching the Web for facilities that have been abandoned or turned into something that they were not built for.
In a perfect world, the governance of sport organisations should be so well informed as to avoid making poor decisions for their organisations. The reality is somewhat different.
The Research outlined in the paper linked above did however lead to the development of a couple of online tools, the Readiness Assessment Tool by the Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC), and the UMAP by the IOC. However, neither were really rolled out either due to political decisions or perhaps a failure to educate sport administrators as to the urgency of understanding the need for ‘Readiness’ in all decision-making.
So where are we now? Hopefully A.I. can carry on the work done 15 years ago and provide the advice sports administrators need before they choose to embark on ambitious sport development initiatives. Sport at the non-professional level struggles to find the resources it needs and governments by and large are reticent to invest in sport, especially in developing environments. Therefore, it is essential that sport administrators, from Boards members responsible for Governance to the Managers that implement policies and plans make more effort to ensure that their organisations are ‘Ready’ to undertake ambitious projects and use whatever resources they have available to them to the best of their ability. Only then will sport effectively contribute to the overall development of any community.
Minno's World of Sport 