15 Feb What are the Business Need? 2. What are the Business Requirement?? 3. What are the Business value? 4. What are the special issues The purpose of this strategic assessment is to

Question :
1. What are the Business Need? 2. What are the Business Requirement?? 3. What are the Business value? 4. What are the special issues
The purpose of this strategic assessment is to analyze the current IT infrastructure of the UofL Men’s Basketball Team and what the possible areas of improvement within the organization are. A brief introduction will explain the history and purpose of the organization. After analyzing their current infrastructure and organizational processes, recommended courses of actions will be considered and explained. Analysis will include that of the five current management and business processes, current IT Environment consisting of hardware and software, staff IT skills/training, IT budgeting and spending, envisioned IT capabilities, where the leadership’s vision and what the organization is overall looking for will be detailed, and where the Top 10 Technology Issues affecting the organization and subsequent recommendations will be discussed. These recommendations will include theories learned in Management of Information Systems to justify the reasonings.
History and Purpose
History of the UofL Men’s Basketball Team
The Louisville Cardinal’s men’s basketball team, founded in 1911, represents the University of Louisville in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, which is the highest level of college athletics sanctioned. Since it was founded, the UofL men’s basketball team has claimed three all-time NCAA Tournament titles, 76 all-time tournament wins, and has been in the Final Four 10 times. UofL is currently the only school nationwide to have championship of three major national post-season tournaments. This includes the 1948 NAIA championship, the 1956 NIT title, and the 1980, 1986, and 2013 NCAA championships. The 2013 championship title has since been vacated by UofL due to a ruling by the NCAA Appeals Committee regarding an incident where the Head Coach and former Louisville Director of Basketball committed violations that left some of the men’s basketball student athletes competing while, as it was ruled by the committee, they were ineligible to compete. The current Athletic Director is Josh Heird and the Head Coach is Kenny Payne, who was signed to a six-year contract by UofL on March 18, 2022. Kenny Payne is a former player at Louisville Cardinals and worked as an assistant coach for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) for two seasons and was selected at the 19th pick of the 1989 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers.
One of UofL’s notable rivals is the Kentucky Wildcats, with the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry being ranked the 2nd best rivalry in college basketball (Bleacher Report), and 3rd best rivalry in the entirety of college sports by Dick Vitale, a Basketball Hall of Fame Contributor (Wikipedia.org).
Currently, the practicing facility for the basketball team is at the Planet Fitness-Kueber Center, a $15.2 million facility, located on campus. This has been the practicing facility since 2007 and it additionally houses the team’s basketball offices, training areas, and film room. The entire IT team is housed within this building.
Purpose of the UofL Men’s Basketball Team
The purpose of the organization is to help advance their athletes in their physical ability to allow them to perform as best as possible and win as many games in the NCAA as possible. They are working to achieve this mission by studying the movement, physical health, and athletic ability of each athlete. The data gathered from these test sessions will then be analyzed and then used to predict courses of action for each athlete (such as prescribing different exercises). In their own words, they are looking to make these athletes “elite.” They will also use predictive modeling to see which plays will be more effective in certain games versus others. For example, if the data indicates that a certain play is successful in increasing the rebound percentage, then that play will be used to increase the effectiveness of the play.
Management and Business Processes.
There are five major processes the organization must undergo in order to fulfill its mission: Gather the Data, Store the Data, Analyze the Data, Recommend Exercises and Game Play, and Follow-up and Repeat.
Practice 1 – Gather the Data
The first practice area that the organization undergoes is to collect data. The following encompasses the types of data that the organization collects:
Medical data on individual athletes
Data of the volume, speed, and intensity of high velocity movements such as jumps, running, and out bounding
Data of isometric exercises, static exercises, and heavy load exercises
Visual data that shows video feedback on the movement patterns of individual athletes
Data from plays in both practice and in games, and the success rates of those plays (Practice Box Scores; Game Box Scores)
Administrative data (such as scheduling)
GPS and LPS data
Practice 2 – Store the Data
This data that is collected is the vital part of making sure the organization is accomplishing its mission. The organization’s goal is to take this data and transform it into something that can then help the men’s basketball team significantly improve performance and continue to do so without risking the health and safety of the athletes. After the data is stored and analyzed, it can be used to make suggestions and predictions for athletes. The software and programs that the organization uses to collect the data is extensive and will be discussed in greater detail under the ‘Software’ section under ‘Current IT Environment.”
Because the amount of data being produced and collected is so large, there needs to be a location to store all of the data, where it can be easily accessible, secure, and is not compromised. The organization’s current system for storing data is to store everything on hard drives on their computers. Nothing is being stored in the cloud yet. When key personnel are looking to access the data, they will pull the data, which are either in .XLSX format or are formatted in .CSV files (which can be opened in Excel as well) and look at the numbers in Excel. This is the extent of the current process.
All data that is stored and that will be stored at some point needs to be in-house. This is both to ensure the privacy and protection of the data, as well as to keep things more easily organized. While this is the extent of the current data storing process, the organization is looking to evolve this process into including a feature that allows restricted access to a few key personnel, such as the Head Coach and medical personnel, while at a live game so that last-minute changes to game plays can be made, which could require the data to be accessed outside of the facility.
The current system results in a situation where it is not easily accessible by all necessary personnel. This prevents key personnel from accessing the data, which then in turn also prevents the following business processes, ‘Analyzing the Data’ and ‘Recommending Exercises and Game Plays,’ from being fully effective. It also can result in data being lost or compromised, which would not only be devastating for the proposed exercises and game plays for the athletes, but for the financial aspect as well since it can become costly for the investors of the UofL Men’s Basketball team who make more money the more effective players are at winning their games. All of these issues will be further addressed later in this document in “Leadership’s Vision” and in “Top 10 Technology Issues” under “Envisioned IT Capabilities,” as well as in the recommendations section.
Practice 3 – Analyze the Data
The next step after storing the data is to transform and analyze it to make sense of the numbers. The organization’s current process for analyzing the data is extremely limited, as previously mentioned, due to the lack of system in place to appropriately store the data in-house. This will need to be addressed in order for the IT personnel to be able to properly analyze the data. The Director of Analytics, Gabe Snider, is a key aspect of this business process and would need an efficient system in order to properly analyze the data that could then be passed on to the necessary users.
Analysis of the data can tell so much important information that could be the difference between a strong, healthy athlete, and an injured one. For example, if an athlete is struggling to make a certain movement pattern, this could indicate an underlying issue—which would need to be addressed in order to ensure the athlete is not straining or further injuring themselves. Real-time surveillance feedback that is slowed down can show indications such as this. Analysis of data can also show other important, yet not as obvious, things that can lead to crucial recommendations. If a certain play is found to be unsuccessful in bringing in a win, then this information would need to be determined from said analyses so that key personnel such as the Head Coach could make decisions from it.
Practice 4 – Recommend Exercises and Game Plays
After the raw data has been turned into something comprehensible through proper analysis, various personnel will give recommended courses of action for individual athletes and for specific games and practices.
As previously mentioned, courses of action can include medical personal recommending certain exercises and stretches for athletes to prevent injuries. “Recommending exercises” can also refer to coaches recommending certain exercises to athletes to help them train in an area where they may lack in physical strength and ability, according to the diagnostic data.
Currently, the recommendations that the staff can give athletes is limited so long as the data is not being utilized properly. Once this is addressed, recommendations will significantly improve.
Practice 5 – Follow-up and Repeat
After courses of actions have been recommended by key personnel, the organization’s final business process is to follow up on the recommendations and to monitor the results. Then based on those results, the system will repeat the entire process from practice one of collecting the data. Follow up on individual athlete’s performances and health, as well as collective performances during games ensures that these recommendations remain effective. The more testing and results there are, the more accurate recommendations can become, and thus can be more effective in the long term.
Current IT Environment
Hardware
The hardware currently being used to collect data for the UofL Men’s Basketball Team includes the following devices: Catapult, DARI, Hawkins Dynamic Wireless Force Platform, an embedded diagnostic rakes system, and Perch Velocity Based Training System. The number of devices that will interact with the entire system would likely be around 3-4 per person listed on the access list (found under the ‘Staff IT Skill/Training’ section. These devices would range from laptops to smartphones.
Catapult Systems
Made by Catapult Sports, a sports performance analytics company dedicated to providing performance technology for 39 different sports in 137 countries, Catapult hardware is made up of three physical devices (Catapult Vector, the ClearSky T6, and the Optimeye S5) that track different metrics. The organization also uses Catapult Vision.
The first one, Catapult Vector, is a powerful dual GNSS/LPS device that delivers live algorithms and communications. This device is imbedded in a vest worn by the athletes which is made from conductive materials that is both comfortable for the athlete and functions to track heart rate and movements. The athletes of the UofL men’s basketball team will put on these vests before practice and future games. The heart rate component is ECG Derived and is Polar H1/H10 compatible. The dimensions of the hardware are 81mm x 43mm x 16mm and the weight is 53g. The battery has a life of 6 hours. The GPS (Global Positioning System) uses 10Hz GPS and the LPS (Local Positioning System) uses 10Hz for Catapult ClearSky (for Vectors S7/G7 only). The accelerometer in the device is 3D +/-16G and is sampled at 1kHz and provided at 100Hz. The Gyroscope is 3D 2000 degrees and second at 100HZ. The Magnetometer is 3D ±4900 µT at 100Hz.
The second device, ClearSky T6, is a wearable LPS device that delivers accurate, high-quality positional data and inertial data in any indoor and outdoor environment. It uses locally installed sensors to do so and reports the data in real time. The dimensions of the device are 48mm x 40mm x 6mm and the weight is 53g. The battery life lasts 5 hours. The LPS uses Ultra-wideband and Bluetooth 5, and the wireless range goes up to 300m (UWB). Wireless Communication uses a separate Bluetooth low energy chipset and a 2.4GHz antenna. The heart rate is ECG Derived and Polar T31 Compatible. The accelerometer in the device is 3D +/-16G and is sampled at 1kHz and provided at 100Hz. The Gyroscope is 3D ±4000 degrees and second at 100HZ. The Magnetometer is 3D ±1200 µT at 100Hz.
The third device, Optimeye S5 is a small hand-held device that can be attached to the athletes’ clothing to record live GPS data. It can be connected to a PC via USB cable where Windows can then install the drivers. The device operates on the 2.4GHx Spectrum. It common for the equipment to be interfered by external sources that operate in the same RF spectrum, such as wireless cameras, drones, and other antennas. The dimensions are 96mm x 52 mm x 14mm. It contains an athlete ID strip that is designed to have the athlete’s name and playing number written in permanent marker.
Catapult Vision is also used to capture and show a live analysis of video footage. The device contains a unique tagging and labeling system. The rest of the features of Catapult Vision will be discussed under the ‘software’ section of the Current IT Environment.
DARI Systems
DARI Human Motion Analytics System is a predictive analytics system that contains a motion-capture camera system to capture fully body movement, kinematics, and kinetics that can then be processed and analyzed in real-time with performance analysis software, which is further explained in the ‘Software’ section. The device requires a 10-foot-by-10-foot space for the system to be installed, which is easy-to-use. It works by having a person, regardless of age or fitness level, step in front of the camera system, where it immediately begins to collect map, and process the information the muscular skeletal data of the person. DARI operates without time-consuming markers, special clothing, or force plates, and is able to quickly deliver accurate, objective data, unlike marker-based systems. This means it is gives quantifiable results for easier comparisons and makes it easy to reassess people often.
Hawkin Dynamic Wireless Force Platform
The Hawkin Dynamics Wireless Force Platform is a human measurement system that provides highly accurate force measurements for performance assessment. The physical device consists of two platforms connected together, for the left and right. These platforms measure the force being applied to them and display live action data via Wi-Fi on an android device.
The size of the device is 605mm x 360mm x 700mm and the weight is 12kg. The battery is a Lithium-ion with a 6000mA.h 3.7 voltage and has a life of 9 hours. The excitation voltage is 5 volts, and the sampling frequency is 1000Hz. The material is stainless steel and aircraft aluminum. The maximum load has a 150% max range, and the sensor type uses a Beam Load Cell. There are four total piezoelectric sensors per plate. These sensors if the athletes are toe or heal dominant by the measuring the amount of pressure exerted on the mat, and how much force they are producing relative to time.
Diagnostic Rakes System
The Planet Fitness-Keuber Center’s basketball training facility has a diagnostic rakes system with flushed force plates embedded in the floor with a rack in the middle. On the inside set, they can use this system to track strength movement, such as isometric testing, squatting, and heavy load. On the outside set they can track high velocity movement, such as jumping, out bounding, and other Olympic-type movements.
Perch Velocity Based Training System
Perch Velocity Based Training System is a piece of weight room technology that has a computer system embedded to track workouts and provide real-time feedback. Perch is compatible with or without any weight rack and is easily added to any weight room. There are small 3D cameras installed that depth and displacement of movement. Through machine learning, Perch can track reps, sets, velocity, and power output. The data from this can be pulled as either .TXT or .CSV and is stored in a centralized database online.
Software
There are various software and platforms being used by the organization to collect and analyze data on their athletes. The extensive list includes Catapult Systems, DARI Systems, Force Platform Hawkins Dynamic, Smartabase, Synergy Sports Technology, KenPom.com, Bart Torvik, JustPlay, and Sportsware. They have other software that they use for scouting. However, the Director of Analytics has stated that that would not be a part of this project.
Catapult Systems
As previously mentioned, Catapult technology consists of wearable devices to track the athletes’ different metrics, including positional data, inertial data, internal load, and visual data. The software component of the Catapult system tracks this data, which can be extracted as CSV files, to then assess the data. Specifically, metrics that are assessed the following: positional data from LPS and GPS, inertial data from external load (which is calculated as speed times distance), internal load from tracking things like heart rate and sweat output, and visual data from a camera system to visually show the athletes what their movement looks like. Other metrics can include things like player load and player load-per-minute, which is the volume and intensity that the players get through practice and through games. This is an algorithm that takes into account acceleration, deceleration, and jumps. There is a load for every session so that they can compare session through session. They also interface with a camera system that will show the athlete instantaneous feedback such as if their right knee is caving in during a jump movement or their trunk is forward flexing. It also has a capability of bar-tracking speed (so how fast are they moving a prescribed load). It gives them a more precise way to determine what needs to be further tested. For example, instead of testing something three times, they can pinpoint something more specific and give a calculated prescribed exercises to the athletes. All of this data can be then input into excel to track all statistics over days, weeks, and months.
DARI Systems
The DARI platform previously mentioned uses motion-activated cameras to capture information about the person’s movement in real-time and provide almost immediate feedback.
Through 19 movements in the functional motion analysis, the DARI platform technology identifies mostly use patterns that can lead to non-contact injuries, meaning that DARI testing can prevent injuries before they happen by identifying specific physical qualities about the person. The results that DARI produces are easy to interpret and can be exported as CSV files.
Hawkin Dynamic Wireless Force Platform
The data that comes from the Hawkins Dynamic force platform can be exported as CSV files so that the data can be visualized. There is a cloud system that uploads to a dashboard where the data can be uploaded. The data can also be exported to other data visualization platforms such as Python or R. The system requires a Wi-Fi connection and an android device to use the android app that displays live action data.
Tableau Software
Tableau is an online interactive business intelligence and data analytics software that allows data visualization techniques for exploring and analyzing relational databases (Wikipedia.org). This is the software the organization is using for pulling data from the Hawkin Dynamic wireless force platform.
Smartabase Software
Smartabase is an athlete management system that can be customized to fit a specific organizational structure and sports team need. It serves as the hub for the organization’s performance, medical, and coaching staff and provides custom dashboards and reports from imported metrics that can be calculated so that staff, coaches, and athletes can make better decisions to drive performance. Information can be shared quickly to enable good communication. The organization is coding the data through Python.
Sportsware Software
Sportsware is a web-based injury-tracking software the organization uses that allows for easy reporting, tracking, updating, and managing of medical information and injuries. Sportsware Online can be accessed from any web-enabled device. The organization uses this software for all injury reports, and the data can be pulled from the website as a .XLSX file or .CSV file.
Synergy Sports Technology
Synergy Sports Technology is an American company that produces basketball analytics for their partners, including the NCAA Division I Men’s programs. The basketball analytics are web-based and video-supported and are used for scouting and developing by the UofL men’s basketball team. These analytics are available through an online database, where data can be pulled in .CSV format.
KenPom.com
KenPom.com is a college basketball and statistical archive website created by Ken Pomeroy that contains statistics for every NCAA Division I Men’s basketball team. These statistics are used by the UofL men’s basketball team and are pulled manually whenever necessary. Some of the metrics available to download include possession by possession, tempo, pace, and non-numeric factors such as offensive and defensive strategies of play.
Bart Torvik T-Rank
Bart Torvik is a college basketball analytics specialist who created an algorithmic system known as “T-Rank” that similarly to KenPom provides publicly available statistics on basketball analytics such as ratings for points per possession and opponent strength. Any data from the site would have to be pulled manually.
JustPlay Solutions
JustPlay is an online platform for basketball coaches to improve coaching strategies and create interactive scouting reports. Features include diagrams of plays with animation, scouting automation reports with automated rosters and statistics, advanced analytical reports, organization, and content sharing and collaboration. Any data pulled would have to be done so manually.
Microsoft Suites
The University of Louisville provides the UofL Men’s Basketball Team with full access to Microsoft suites. The organization regularly uses Outlook.com, Teams, and Excel to do daily functions. Excel is currently the main platform being used to import data. Among the other statistics being imported into Excel, it is being used to store the Practice Box Scores and Game Box Scores that are being developed by Professor Warren McIntosh at UofL. Almost everything is done through excel because it is easy and simple for the staff IT to use. However, the organization has stated that they would prefer for all systems to be more interconnected and to have better communication within the staff and team. The possibility from moving away from Excel will be discussed in the recommendation’s sections of “Closing the Gap.”
Staff IT Skills/Training
There is not a current skills and training procedure. All of the organization’s employees are hired from different backgrounds and start at different points within the organization. They are trying to keep everything “easy” to “put everything into place” (Gabe, Director of Analytics), but there is no set defined procedure for this. The people responsible for training the rest of the staff are Gabe, Justin, and a graduate assistant (unspecified) on the team. This is currently a contributing issue that will need to be addressed in the recommendations. A standard operating procedure (SOP), which is a business document that details step-by-step instructions on how to conduct routine operations (Wikipedia.org), along with a standardized training process, ensures five things for the business.
First, it ensures consistency across all levels and practices. Everyone will be trained the same way and will perform consistently across their duties. This also makes the results of their work more predictable. Second, as the organization expands, it becomes easier as certain processes will be replicated to the same standard. Third, having an SOP and standard training procedure reduces the learning curve for new employees as they will have something to refer back to when they are uncertain about something without having to ask every time that they have an inquiry. This in turn increases productivity as it reduces time wasted answering questions and showing employees something that they should have learned through the training process or could look up in the SOP. Fourth, it ensures business continuity. In other words, if someone is unable to come in for a period of time, the business processes set in place will not fall apart and will continue to operate normally without them. This also helps delegate tasks to employees who are at a stand-still with work and are looking for something to work on. And finally, an SOP and standardized training procedure helps improve overall performance management. Documentation helps managers evaluate their employees more effectively by more easily being able to identify successes and areas for improvement.
Another reason to have a standard training procedure in place is to stay aligned with major IT issues that businesses face. This is further explained in the “Top 10 Technology Issues” under the “Envisioned IT Capabilities” section of the document.
One standard that will need to be included is the level of access that certain employees will have to the system. The current staff who will need access (and the level of access) to IT systems (who currently have access to the hub) include the following personnel:
Kenny Payne (Head Coach) – Full Access
Danny Manning (Assistant Coach) – Full Access
Nolan Smith (Assistant Coach) – Full Access
Josh Jamieson (Assistant Coach) – Full Access
Gabe Snider (Director of Analytics) – Full Access
Justin Perez (Chief of Staff) – Full Access
Milt Wagner (Director of Player Development) – Full Access
Devante Frazier (Director of Sports Medicine) – Limited Access (Sports medicine related, nutrition, strength training related)
Adam Petway (Head Strength and Conditioning Coach) – Limited Access (Nutrition, Strength Training Related)
Tiffany White (Associate Director of Sports Nutrition) – Limited Access (Nutrition)
IT Budgeting and Spending
The skills set of the IT staff includes working with Microsoft suites (including Excel), working with Python, R, SQL, and of course, all equipment previously mentioned.
Currently, all of the equipment used is owned by the UofL Men’s Basketball facility. Some of the software being used requires an annual subscription. The following is an estimated cost value of the hardware and software currently being used by the UofL Men’s basketball team.
Name of Technology Estimated Cost of Technology
Catapult Systems Unknown
DARI Systems Unknown
Hawkin Dynamic Wireless Force Platform $5,000
Perch Velocity System Unknown
Tableau Software $70/mo x 12 months = $840/yr
Smartabase Software Unknown for software. $0.99 for the Smartabase App.
Sportsware Price depends on number of concurrent uses with different capabilities. SportsWareOnLine is free of charge for view only access users.
Synergy $6,500 annually
Microsoft Suites Free through the University of Louisville
Total Estimated Cost of Technology: $12,340.99 for the first year and $7,340 every year after that.
Although some prices are unknown, the basketball team has invested at least an estimated $12,340.99 into its equipment and software platforms. The UofL Men’s Basketball team receives significant funding from the University of Louisville, and as stated by Gabe Snider, Director of Analytics, they could potentially invest into a proposed project of up to $50,000, although this would be a most expensive-case scenario where the proposal offers a concrete solution with much capability. An estimated expense of 5,000 on a new proposed system for be more feasible for the organization.
Envisioned IT Capabilities
Leadership’s Vision
There are several things that the leaders of this organization are looking to have in their envisioned IT capabilities. First, they would like to have better integration and interconnectedness between the many systems they are using to collect and track athlete and basketball analytics. There are several sectors of the program that need to have smooth communication between themselves as well. Second, they would like to have the data that they collect from these systems to be stored in one central location and to be easily accessible by key personnel with the appropriate designated access level. They are currently using Excel to do so but have reported dissatisfaction with the limitations of this. This data would also need to be accessible by the discussed key personnel when at a game outside of the facility. All of the data would need to be stored in one central location in-house, where the staff can look at it and view the correlations easily. Third, the leaders would like to be utilizing the equipment and software they have to the best of their ability in order to be able to use the data they collect to analyze which plays will be most successful. For example, a play that has a low percentage of success will likely not be used again. They would also like to see if it is a specific athlete that is affecting the play due to a certain movement pattern, such as how they are jumping. They want to see if there is a correlation between the plays and exercises the athletes are performing and then be able to tag certain plays and exercises as more successful or less successful. Gabe Snider, the Director of Analytics, has specifically requested that the new system allow him to uniformly reference everything in order to more effectively see if their current tactics are working for them.
Top 10 Technology Issues
The following are the top ten technology issues that the UofL Men’s Basketball Team faces and that need to be addressed within the context of the organization. All of these issues affect each other and are interconnected.
Dynamic Updates
Keeping data updated is extremely important because it affects every aspect of the business. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that describes the growing network of everyday objects that are becoming internet enabled. This produces “Big Data” which is simply a collection of data that is enormous in size. In the organization’s case, the amount of data being gathered and analyzed is quite significant and requires for the system to have dynamic updates included in order to deal with Big Data and the phenomenon of the IoT. Keeping data updated also relates to the organization’s ability to adapt to its environment, which is a core criterion for the success of an organizational structure.
Accessibility
Accessibility is a major IT issue affecting the UofL Men’s Basketball team. There is not currently a system that allows for the proper personnel to access certain data in an efficient way. There is also not a proper system set in place to restrict access at all appropriate levels of the organization. Accessibility will need to be factored into any decision-making to make sure that different levels of access are created for different people. One example of why this is so crucial is the medical aspect of the processes. There is a large amount of private medical data on the team’s athletes being stored and accessed by medical personnel on a regular basis. Any future systems will need to adhere to HIPPA laws and regulations to make sure that only the allowed persons are able to access any data such as this.
Usability
Usability refers to the system being user friendly. This is especially of a concern for the IT staff as they do not want to deal with anything complicated; “If I download and app and it asks me to sign up, I’m not doing it, I just can’t” (Gabe Snider, Director of Analytics). Usability issues can lead to inaccurate reports