Restructure

[Frank The Tank]

Following on from the Rikers thread, last post end of January 2014, through the various points discussed some thoughts were offered about a few problems the GU League faces;

• Leadership
  Communication with players
  Decisions in a timely manner

Unless I'm mistaken, we haven't heard a peep from the Council as to a way forward, only that Rikers will now have a fixed date bi-annually. Perhaps allejo was right in his comments in the thread.
Back to basics, what we know of the current administration structure and who does what, please correct me if my understanding of roles is incorrect:

• Website: TS
  
  Owners/Hosters: Brad, Blast, Bullet Catcher, Mana, Ahs, Quol
  
  Developers: Allejo, Bullet Catcher, Constitution, Blast
  
  Honorary: ATG, Quantum dot
  
  Ruling Admins: Brad, Constitution, Firing Squad, Kierra, NTH, Snow Monkey, T-roy, & Zel

From my understanding GU related matters are discussed amongst ALL of the above but only the Ruling Admins carry sway.
Will take a moment to thank Grans Remedy (recently retired from hosting) for hosting enuff servers down here in New Zealand, Southern Hemisphere for laggers Inc.

I'm going to suggest we restructure the group of ruling admins and reduce the total number down to only 4.

Of that 4, for the moment none can have a dual role, thus freeing up time to do exactly what is intended, Rule.
From the 4, they elect a Leader whose only distinction is to have a casting vote if a consensus can not be reached, or the need to close a discussion in a timely manner.

• The position of leader is a role by 18 month/2 year rotation.
  
  Things like bans are done by nomination, so any 2 admins (hoster/developer/ruling etc) need agree, and durations are clearly defined for various acts if this needs further enhancement. Less time wasting on the small stuff, freeing up time for what players would really prefer from their ruling admins.
  
  Those previous ruling admins remaining and the cops position are combined as one and made into Server Admins, exactly like we have in Ducati.
  
  Would nominate the following 3 based on my view of how they communicate with players, Firing Squad, Kierra, Snow Monkey and would suggest they nominate their 4th Ruling Admin.

Quite simply a reduced group of Ruling Admins should provide us the Player Group with,

• Leadership
  Communication with players
  Decisions in a timely manner

Set up from there is another idea of using IRC as a means to best communicate with ruling admins from any group of players wishing to discuss an idea. The thread of an idea is directly communicated and stays within the IRC channel. Ruling Admins would set up the channel by invitation to a player or players, if they believe the need to discuss an idea with particular player or players.

Just throwing it out the for discussion. Would like to make our GU management structure simpler and more effective with the best use of our free time.

Cheers FtT
Good luck

PS If you really want to get this idea rolling, ask as many players as possible to read this thread, don't debate it, just ask each them to vote yes if in favour. (yes, favour is spelt with a U, microsoft has a lot to answer for, btw we were here first so we can spell it with a U)

[macsforme]

Perhaps you can elaborate on how this elaborate idea is better and not just different than what we have now? And what do you mean by saying you are throwing this out for discussion then saying not to debate it just vote on it?

[Frank The Tank]

Sure Connie.
'Back to basics' was my comment. I'm a capitalist, so I look at things using business models and their efficiencies or lack thereof.
I was using the discussion borne from the Rikers thread as a stepping off point. The objectives raised from that thread in brief; Leadership, communication, decisions have not altered since January of this year. Another example, history shows decisions like 20 minute matches took nearly 2 years from conception to reality. Begs the question, why? And is our current model of management effective?

There are several ways to look at improving this. I favoured ( spelt with a U) the typical restructuring of an organization by trimming down the numbers of final decision makers to achieve effective results. It's not an elaborate idea just basic business, terms like trim, redundancies etc are what you normally hear. All in a quest to refresh, be innovative, breathe life back into what was first created and most successful.
One of the biggest problems any business or organization can face is people may be far more vested in keeping things as they’ve always been than they are in trying something new and potentially risky. Here again, this difference can lead to frustration on both sides when two groups ie admins/players engage in an open innovation. Mature organizations get more defensive and hence the relative focus on more potentially breakthrough innovations versus continuous improvements decreases. Mature organizations certainly can innovate. They have the required resources and deep talent pools. However, mature organizations are often very risk adverse, so it’s difficult to get a particular group to adopt an innovation that is not exactly in their sweet spot. True innovation often requires a mature organization to embrace a totally new concept. Mature organizations are very reluctant to take any sort of risk associated with entering a new field.
All admins, hosters, developers still need to interact so the knowledge base is not lost and must still get to participate in discussions.

Another possible way of keeping the talent pool of ruling admins as is, is to have a peer review. Would suggest you have a minimum of 3 players. Ask past admins like orb, hosters like Grans back into the fold for the purpose of conducting a peer review. Formulate a simple brief, get back to what the league was first founded on and made it successful.
The great joy back when the league first started would have been it was young, had passion, wasn't risk adverse, bend some rules in order to create new ones hence innovation occurred.

Connie, if you think the above objectives can be achieved with the present numbers, please prove me wrong, but I haven't seen any evidence as yet.
I would task the present group or the smaller group with the following;
Create a Development Plan & within it set out some clear objectives;

• Leadership
  Communication with players
  Decisions in a timely manner
  Succession planning
  Innovation

The smaller group may well find starting with 4 to be too small, hence why I said 'for the moment'.
A smaller group will offer a pathway to innovation, speedy decision making, more interactive with the GU community and should offer things like; a working group of players/admins to organize a monthly tourneys or match eg Rest of the World vs the winner of Rikers, Admins vs the first 10 to show up, Top team in the League vs a make shift team. etc etc.

And my comment regarding a 'vote' was purely to engage people who read this thread to be reactive at least at some level.

Have fun on the battlefield
Cheers
FtT