Daily Decision-Making

A ground's manager has to be proactive in making operational decisions every morning at the start of each working day. Good forward planning will help to lay the foundation for improved decision making, but this still needs to be managed according to what might arise on the day. Decision making has to respond to routinely, or even continually, moving goalposts, so a ground’s manager will need to possess a good range of soft skills to deliver the desired service required from an employer. There are several key factors that can influence the decision of what needs to be carried out during the day, including:
• What is the staff availability? Is anyone off sick, away on training, absent, on holiday or otherwise engaged? How does this impact on the team and planned work?
• What is the weather condition – both current and forecast for the day?
• What are the ground conditions? Both weather and ground conditions can significantly alter what maintenance work can potentially take place, so plans would probably need to change, especially if unnecessary and unacceptable damage to a grass sward would occur.
• Are there any ongoing equipment issues? For example, continued machine breakdown making it unavailable for planned work?
• Are there any material issues? For example, if a delivery has not arrived then this could delay some planned activities.
• What equipment and materials area actually available for use by operatives?
• What user activities are planned? There may be pitches that need preparing for games, or a game might have been rearranged at the last minute the day before so changes to grounds maintenance activities might need to be made to ensure the unplanned game has a pitch that is adequately prepared for the teams.
• What was the original plan of action? If there are no interruptions or issues, then this may be able to progress as originally planned.
• Are there any unforeseen situations or other unplanned events which impact on the planned work schedule?