Daniel Memmert is Professor and Executive Head of the Institute of Exercise Training and Sport Informatics at the German Sport University Cologne. A lifelong sports player and enthusiast, Memmert’s research is at the intersection of human movement science, sport psychology, computer science in sports, talent, children and elite research and research methods.

His research has studied some of the most renowned European and World Cup players—and through this he has informed the design of sports programs across the world, including the Canadian women’s soccer team as well as more than a dozen elite soccer clubs in Germany. And, he believes these elite creative skills can be acquired and learned, suggesting that there are ways in which this tactical creativity can be intentionally developed.

Our conversation focused on his work on teaching, developing, and understanding different forms of creativity in organized sports settings. We discussed his interest in helping athletes develop their capacity for divergent thinking—that is, thinking outside of routines, processes, and norms (which all relate to convergent thinking)—in real-time competitive situations, leading to what is generally referred to as ‘tactical creativity.’ As he said:

We all know what tactical creativity is, it’s flexible, effective, original solutions in a given time and situation…a kind of operationalization of divergent thinking, this fluency, this flexibility. We borrowed that and transferred that to the world of sport.

Full citation and link below

Cain, W., Henriksen, D., Memert, D., & Mishra, P. (2021). A Pitch for Diversity: Teaching Tactical Creativity in Sports and Other Domains with Dr. Daniel Memmert. Tech Trends. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-021-00645-1