The dissection of a game into parts that can be recorded, tracked, and analyzed is one of the basic premises of data analysis. Without the data, coaches are left to manage based on anecdotal evidence, or with past lure (as dipicted in Moneyball). But once data has been collected and information gleaned from it, coaches are able to see the effects of their decisions and individual players abilities. From the WSJ article:
"For coaches, Krossover's results can be rather shocking. For years, Tammy Lusinger, head coach of the girls' basketball team at Mansfield Summit High School in Arlington, Texas, had a favorite play called "Bama" in which the girls cleared out one side of the court then set up a series of screens to free a player for an open shot. "It's a great looking little play," Lusinger said last week.
"But after she started using Krossover, she was in for a surprise: The numbers showed that they were only scoring on that play 5% of the time. Earlier this month, Lusinger and Mansfield Summit won their second Texas state championship in the last four years."
The difficulty lies in the data collection part. Krossover is able to harness cheap, but capable labor to scrutinize every tape one at a time. Businesses with thousands of operations may not have the luxury of the same capabilities; however, I'm not sure why they could not. For example, a manager of a McDonald's could record the interactions of cashiers and have them indexed, sliced, and diced the same as a basketball coach. This might bring up images of a "Big Brother" firm that records and analyzes every movement of it's employees. On the other hand, it may bring to light the differences between stellar employees and just good employees.
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