The fundamentals of the design of organized practice in team sports

To be effective, sport practice must be relevant to the circumstances in which it takes place, as well as to the objectives coaches have set to achieve progress. These circumstances involve many sets of information that coaches must weigh, without neglecting their own biases when prioritizing them. As part of their duty, coaches must design and deliver quality activities that reflect the best available approach given the circumstances, which requires a thorough understanding of how modifications to the original game affect practice. Designing such type of organized practice relies on a rich thinking process that has not been studied yet. In this insight paper, we describe key elements of information about the individuals, the environment, and the policies that constitute the ecosystem of organized practice and suggest strategies to structure their articulation throughout the design of team sport activities. The purpose of revisiting the design process is to establish an objective foundation for practitioners as they think through and conceive activities independently, while keeping players at the heart of the process. Recommendations emphasize greater empowerment and use of available information, rather than efforts to set standards, since a process driven by the coach holds more potential for customized solutions than a simple inventory of variables. In conclusion, practitioners stand to benefit greatly from relying on guiding principles throughout the process, which ultimately frees them from dependence on decontextualized examples. We finally identify the Design Thinking framework as a matching method for completing this coaching duty.