Volleyball analytics workshop notes

Catching up on a backlog of work from 2019. Here are some notes from a volleyball scouting and analytics workshop that we ran in Hobart in October:

Some selected messages from the workshop:

Scouted match data can be used for a range of different purposes: analyzing performance, setting goals, feedback to players, and more.
The raw data that you collect and the information that you extract and report from those data are not the same thing. For example, labelling something as an “error” in the data does not mean that it necessarily needs to be reported as one later on, nor that all errors need to be treated as equally important.
Don’t design your data collection conventions in a certain way because you want to be able to show those data directly to players or other stakeholders. You may be compromising the value of that data for other purposes. Instead, design your conventions so that the data are consistent, objective, and therefore more likely to be useful for a broader range of analyses.
Before you collect data, understand what the data are likely to be used for, so that your data collection conventions are appropriate. Similarly, before launching into an analysis, make sure that you understand how the data were collected and that the data are suitable for your intended purpose. There are differences in the conventions that different scouts use when collecting data. Sometimes these differences can be quite marked, and this has implications for how the data can be used and what questions can be answered with them.