“Think Fast. Move Quick. Score Big” – what businesses can learn from Data + Sports. 🤾🏻♀️ At Tableau User Group meetup yesterday.
Last night I heard one of the most practically useful talks I’ve seen in a while – Zak Saucede sharing how data analysis actually works inside elite Netball, and what business can learn from it.
He shared how a tiny analysis team supports 100+ athletes in elite Netball — and what business can learn from it. Here were my big takeaways (with the help of otter.ai and chatgpt):
🍩 Time-to-insight is a competitive advantage
Two seasons ago it took 10 hours to turn match data into something coaches could use. Today? 3 minutes.
A mix of XML extraction, Alteryx automation and Tableau means a thousand matches of league data can be processed almost instantly. Imagine if businesses measured time-to-insight the same way.
🍩Be tool-agnostic
When a coach wanted post-match player questionnaires on her phone, the team didn’t over-engineer it. They found the simplest capture method and shipped.
As Zak put it: “Use whatever solves the problem fastest.”
🍩Constraints drive creativity
At the Grand Final, laptops weren’t allowed so half the team ended up tagging data on Google Sheets via their phones, the other half fighting venue wifi. Was it elegant? No. Did it work? Kinda – they did win the Super Cup and the Grand Final!
A great reminder: perfection matters less than adaptability.
🍩 High impact, low burden
With such a small team, nothing can be wasted – so standardised capture, clean visuals and centralised data mean every hour of work drives coaching decisions.
Elite sport forces clarity and urgency in a way business often doesn’t. Zak’s talk was a brilliant reminder that analytics only matters when it changes outcomes, not when it looks impressive.
It was my first #TUG meetup with Beech H. Raksha Sanganee Patricia R. at Talan – UK along and it made my inner #DataNerd so happy. As an ex SQL-DBA, this talk hit all the right spots.
I’ll definitely be going to more!
