Man & machine: Adaptive tools for the contemporary performance analyst

ABSTRACT

Sport, like many industries, is experiencing growth in resources, professionalism and data generation. An understanding of how humans can effectively and efficiently interact with technology, computers and other machines to improve sports performance is still being developed. As a consequence, the landscape in which the performance analyst now finds themselves has fundamentally changed. New, improved and different skill sets are now required in order to be impactful and experience sustained success. However, this growth also presents new opportunities to address difficult problems, including many that were previously considered intractable. This article lists ten essential adaptive tools for the contemporary performance analyst, many of which are useful in both research and applied sporting environments. A rationale for each is proposed, with an emphasis on ensuring that the performance analyst will be equipped to thrive in both current and future sport environments

KEYWORDS:

• Performance analysis
• analytics
• decision support
• innovation
• evaluation

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dr Carl Woods and Dr Alice Sweeting from Victoria University for their feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ The reader is directed to a short video featuring Bill Gates and Warren Buffet on the importance of taking time out from a crowded schedule in order to think and be creative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH5K0yo-o1A.