Data-Driven Teams: The Art and Science of Winning

Data-Driven Teams: The Art and Science of Winning

Item No. a054v00000jjb6MAAQ
Course Dates Format Location Duration Time Commitment Price
Apr 29-May 1, 2024 Live Online N/A 3 days 4.5 hours/day $4,500
Jun 13-14, 2024 In Person Cambridge, MA 2 days 8 hours/day $4,500
Sep 12-13, 2024 In Person Cambridge, MA 2 days 8 hours/day $4,500

Tracks

Management and Leadership

Certificate Credits

2.0 EEUs

Topics

- Organizations & Leadership

- Strategy & Innovation

- Business Analytics

Course Highlights

  • Helps participants use data to assess their team’s current strengths and weaknesses, identify gaps that need to be filled, and design a system that puts their team in a position to succeed
  • Includes a hands-on data workshop focused on the application of concepts and tools to each participant’s real-world context and challenges
  • Taps into best practices from the sports industry’s analytics revolution
  • Confers a certificate of course completion from the MIT Sloan School of Management

Course Details

Every executive, regardless of their industry, is trying to build a winning team; one that can deliver results in high pressure situations, again and again, despite competition and external market forces. As we endeavor to build such teams, lead them through adversity, and sustain wins over the long term, we can look to superior sports teams for inspiration and answers. 

Data-Driven Teams: The Art and Science of Winning examines how high-performing teams differ from their competitors across four main dimensions: talent, system, leadership, and culture. Drawing on best practices from the sports industry, this new course explores how data can be applied across each of these factors, from identifying talent to measuring your team’s culture.

Through classroom discussions, guest lectures, and project work, you will learn how to:

  • Identify and evaluate talent
  • Design a system that maximizes the potential of the talent on your team
  • Optimize your system to win more consistently 
  • Make winning a more replicable outcome for your teams

Upon successful completion of your course, you will earn a certificate of completion from the MIT Sloan School of Management. This course may also count toward MIT Sloan Executive Certificate requirements.

 

 

Guest Speakers

Brian Billick

Brian Harold Billick is an American former football coach and commentator. He is currently an Offensive Analyst and advisor to Herm Edwards for Arizona State football. He was the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings from 1994 to 1998; the team broke the NFL scoring record in the 1998 season. He is best known for leading Baltimore Ravens to its first 'Super Bowl XXXV' victory. In his recent book, The Q Factor, Billick takes the highly promising 2018 NFL quarterback Draft class - the most touted class since 2004 (Manning, Roethlisberger, Rivers) and 1983 (Elway, Kelly, Marino) - and measures the top five quarterback picks to gauge how, why, and if they succeed.

 

James Dale

James Dale is the former president and CEO of advertising agency W.B. Doner & Co., whose clients included British Petroleum, Chiquita, Coca Cola, John Hopkins University, and the Baltimore Sun. The cowriter of The Q Factor as well as Bullies, Tyrants, and Impossible People: How to Beat Them Without Joining Them, among other books, Dale is the co-founder of the business consulting firm Richlin/Dale LLC. He lives in Maryland with his wife and they are the parents of three children. 

 

Shira Springer

Shira Springer is a Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her teaching and research focus on leadership communication, sports strategy, and storytelling. She’s also a journalist. Her columns, features, and essays appear in a variety of publications, including the Sports Business Journal and The New York Times. Her writing often addresses issues at the intersection of sports and culture, especially women’s sports and gender inequity.

Shira's essays have appeared in The New York Times best seller Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History (Hachette, 2018) and Our Boston: Writers Celebrate the City They Love (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013). She’s also coauthored MIT Sloan case studies on the National Women’s Soccer League. Shira teaches the MBA core course Communication for Leaders and the MBA elective Advanced Leadership Communication. She also teaches storytelling in the MIT Sloan Executive Education program.

Prior to MIT, Shira covered sports for The Boston Globe, multiple NPR programs, and NPR affiliate WBUR. She reported on all four major Boston professional teams, the NBA Finals, World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup Final, and the Winter and Summer Olympics, and she served as the Globe’s Celtics beat writer for seven years.  As a Globe staff writer, she also reported extensively on the Boston Marathon bombings and shared in the paper’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize for that coverage. In addition, she's earned national recognition and awards for her investigative journalism, feature writing, radio storytelling and media criticism. Shira previously taught at Boston University in the College of Communication where she developed and launched the courses Sports Storytelling and Sports, Gender and Justice. She holds an AB from Harvard University in social studies and an MBA from Boston University.

Ben Alamar

Benjamin Alamar has been a leader and innovator in the data science and sports analytics space for over 15 years. He has developed cutting edge analytic tools and built analytics teams for numerous organizations including ESPN, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Cleveland Cavaliers, and StubHub. His work includes innovative models that have informed decisions on both the sport and business side of organizations, building high performing teams that work in partnership with decision makers, and working with top level executives to effectively incorporate data and analytics into the decision making process - including developing a pioneering workshop for executives at StubHub on data in decision making. He also has a distinguished teaching career that includes courses at Columbia, MIT, University of San Francisco, and George Washington University. He has published numerous research studies in sports analytics and has written on sports analytics for outlets such as ESPN, Analytics Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, he is the founding editor of the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, the first peer-reviewed academic journal for research in sports analytics.

Course Experience

Learn more about the live online experience

Learn more about the in-person experience

Applying to the Course

We accept enrollments until the offering reaches capacity at which point, we will maintain a waitlist. Many of the courses fill up several weeks in advance, so we advise that you enroll as early as possible to secure your seat.

You can begin the application process by using the red 'Enroll Now' bar at the bottom of the screen.

Health and Safety

See our on campus healthy and safety policies.

 

Have Questions?

Contact us if you would like to speak with a program director or visit our Frequently Asked Questions page for answers to common questions about our courses.

We are retiring Analytics Management: Business Lessons from the Sports Data Revolution. You may be interested in this new course that will focus on how to create winning teams through analytics.

 

Participants of this course will learn:

  • Why teams win and how high-performing teams differ from their competitors
  • A data-driven approach to talent identification and evaluation 
  • Techniques to measure your current team’s talent base relative to your business needs
  • How to design a system that maximizes the potential of the talent on your team
  • Mechanisms for feedback and iteration to continuously improve your team’s system
  • The role of the leader in fostering a winning culture over the long-term
  • Techniques to better define and optimize your team’s culture 
  • Data-informed insights on how to optimize your system to win more consistently

You will also actively engage in action-learning exercises that will help you apply the concepts and tools to your own team. 

Upon successful completion of your course, you will earn a certificate of completion from the MIT Sloan School of Management. This course may also count toward MIT Sloan Executive Certificate requirements.

Sample Schedule—Subject to Change

This course is designed for senior leaders in any industry who seek to build, lead, or enhance the performance of teams. If you are interested in learning how data and system design can help your team win consistently over time, then this course is for you. 

Course Dates Format Location Duration Time Commitment Price
Apr 29-May 1, 2024 Live Online N/A 3 days 4.5 hours/day $4,500
Jun 13-14, 2024 In Person Cambridge, MA 2 days 8 hours/day $4,500
Sep 12-13, 2024 In Person Cambridge, MA 2 days 8 hours/day $4,500

Tracks

Management and Leadership

Certificate Credits

2.0 EEUs

Topics

- Organizations & Leadership

- Strategy & Innovation

- Business Analytics

Enroll Now!

$4,500