How to use data to answer key coaching questions

What is crucial in how we use data distils down to three key pillars

1 The first aspect is to let data guide you and not lead you. Data allows us to ask better questions on what we ask sportspeople to do day to day. Given enough time, data often seems to either confirm or disprove its initial hypothesis, or better answers come from different analysis of the same data: the lesson being it should always be questioned. I have found that combining evidence-based practice with the data you collect, alongside – yes - the subjective opinions of the wise people in the room – tends to lead to better decisions.

2 The second aspect is prioritisation. Players’ energies both psychologically and physically are finite, and using data as measurement tool for performance has found its feet most comfortably when it comes to the loading aspect. We love to ask how much we are doing. And yet in the lifespan of a player (probably no more than eight years from academy to retirement in pro sport) or a staff member (not even two years as a manager or backroom in a club), as far as giving the best service to individuals and teams, we really should be asking how well we are doing something, and how often we can do it. 

Taking pride in creating successful careers and successful teams is a huge by-product of our industry, and this can be embraced by using data more effectively.

3 The third is to have key winning metrics. Ask the question: what is actually important for this team? Four of the most successful dynasties in sport that I have had the pleasure of knowing their staff would, by the metrics of common practice, be ‘overtraining’ when it comes to almost every single ratio of loading imaginable. However, they would also point at key metrics that are important for them and admit that other teams have that same data but don’t realise it is what they should be looking for. This is where in time AI will almost certainly play a part in taking athletic development and regressive analysis of success to a whole new level. As a custodian of the data analysis in a team, ask what can be taken away from the programme which has lower outcome and replace it with giving more time towards something that does. Using data isn’t just a question of does the boat go faster, but on whether we can make it go faster more efficiently, and can we make a different boat with different people go just as fast.

Application to coaching

This is especially applicable when looking to analyse a player’s role within a team strategy, or in fact to determine what the team’s strategy should be in the first place. As a coach, ask yourself some specific questions that data analysis can help provide the answers for. We as coaches are often predisposed in looking for answers from research and accepted wisdoms of data generated by other teams in other situations that may not be applicable for our team and our situation. Try and use the data that you collect to inform your practice bespoke to your team and to your coaching style.

• Does the data support, or contradict, your gut feeling on how to prepare the team?
• Do you know the optimum game strategy for the group of players that you have?
• Are the commonalities between the most effective players on your team?
• Is there a correlation between output and success?
• Does your gameplan match the resources at your disposal? Can data assist you?
• Are players’ individual development plans consistent with the team’s overall goal?

Asking questions such as these in an open forum can help reduce the number of metrics that you need to look at. Think of all the data that you collect as filling the contents of a sieve with data, and then each intelligent question that you ask is one gentle shake, until you have a concentrated amount of useable, actionable data that you can focus on.