Building A System Around Data Integration
Players will begin to throw and catch across the country over the coming weeks. From High Schools to Spring Training we are going to see a whole new generation of coach continue to change the landscape of baseball. Almost every team or parent are now investing in different pieces of technology, and will be adding different sources of data for the 2020 season. Coaches will be excited to get into the trenches with players, and players will be anxiously awaiting to see how these new pieces of information can help them improve.
I think that we should step back before the season and reflect on a few key ideas as we as a coaching community begin the season. The new generation of coaches now understand what these different metrics provide, and can use them to effectively to coach players. Coaches are now more fluent than ever when it comes to these pieces of technology. I want to look at the next steps in this evolution. We need to consider how we build a system around these new sources of information. A road map should be presented for how you can more effectively implement any piece of technology into your own coaching practice.
Pyramid Of Integration
Below we will flush out the pyramid in more detail to hopefully give coaches more of an understanding of what could be done at each step of the process. Will jump into step two of the pyramid below.
Narrow Focus (Value)
If you focus on everything, you will focus on nothing. The biggest thing before even considering anything further is the simple question: What do I value as a coach? I think starting with this question is the most important thing that a coach can do when looking to integrate data into their daily coaching. If a coach reflects on what he values from his players he will have a much better idea as to what should be focused on.
(I’ve given a pretty good example in the link below)
If you think that swing decisions are most important then by all means. Every coach is going to be slightly different in what they value. Which is completely fine. If you are a larger organization these decisions could even be taken from the top level and spread throughout as an Organizational Philosophy. Once you have an idea of what you value figuring out how you will use this technology is the next step.
Usage
When we examine usage for our technology we need to think of how we plan on using this in the general landscape of our coaching. We will need to answer questions like:
When we will use the piece of technology?
What drills or activities do we plan on incorporating?
How will we collect data from it?
Who will set up the device or help with the transmission of information?
These idea in usage should focus on all different aspects of the technology. Once we have thought of the usage we will move on to the planning aspects that should be involved. These should be generalized ideas of what you will use the technology for.
Systematic Process
In this part of the Integration Pyramid we need to consider a more detailed view at what is happening while we use this piece of technology. We should look into how we will judge whether there are improvements to players. While we also consider specific drills and how the technology should be implemented.
The difference between the usage section and this are based in the idea that we are going to be documenting and recording what is happening to each player, and deciding how we will present players with the information but also how we will go about making changing as we work through the process. There should be concrete details about what specifically you are going to be doing. Whether this be drills, competitions, how you will communicate results and improvements. This should really be the plan for which you are going to use to get players better.
Reflect
Lastly we need to reflect. Although it might seem as though the last step should probably be the easiest when it comes to this process it should be the thing that we focus on most during our time in this process.
Reflection will give us space to think about how this process is going, and make the needed recommendations that will hopefully help to make this process more efficient and effective. Consider what is working, and what isn’t working should only be the surface level questions here. We should also be searching for answer to questions that are deeper than this as you think through the results and what could be changed. Once you have completed this stage it is not enough to keep the process as it is. There is much of a need for the coach to go back to previous changes and work through the system again.
