In the post Putting together a good practice there’s a list of five requirements, as laid out by Jim Stone. The fifth of those requirements is “Post Practice Evaluation and Debrief”. A question from a reader of this blog made me realize that’s a topic I haven’t really addressed before – perhaps aside from talking about them in coaching log entries. Let me remedy that!
Before diving in I want to note that we can look at post-practice talks from two perspectives. One is among the coaching staff. The other is between the team and coaches. I’m going to talk about things from the latter perspective here, but I think both have similar purposes and can be approached in essentially the same way.
That said, let’s get into it.
Part of practice bookends
First, I should note that a post-practice discussion loses a lot of value if there wasn’t a matching one pre-practice. The pre-practice talk sets out what you plan to work on, why, and how. If you don’t do that, then you lose a lot of context for the post-practice chat.
Of course there will always be stuff you can talk about after a session. That’s not the issue. Ultimately, however, there are things you’re looking to accomplish in that practice. If you haven’t laid them out beforehand, it’s hard to then judge things against those expectations afterwards.
So make sure there’s been a pre-practice talk.
Why debrief?
There are multiple uses for a post-practice evaluation:
- Reinforce the session’s developmental objectives, and how they fit in to the big picture
- Share your thoughts on how the session went relative to expectations
- Gather feedback from the players on how they thought things went
- Discuss any issues or developments that came up in the practice
- Lay the ground work for the future
I’m going to address each of these separately.
Reinforcement
Presumably, you focused your practice session on something (or things) you thought important for the team’s development. You (hopefully) shared the what and why behind that during the pre-practice talk. Now’s your chance to reinforce that what and why with the players. Just like with skill development, repetition of key focus points is important. You can’t rely on everyone getting things the first time.
Share your takeaways
This is where you let the team know how you think the session went — positive and negative. What went well. What could have gone better. If there was legitimate progress, make sure you highlight that. Players don’t always see it, especially in the moment. This can be important for motivation.
Gather feedback
You may actually want to do this part before sharing your own takeaways. Either way, the objective is to get a sense of what the players felt about the session. Not all of it will be useful, but some might. And letting the players have a voice is also good for motivation. Just make sure it’s not only the loudest voices doing all the speaking. Find ways to get the quieter players talking as well.
Discuss issues/developments
If anything came up during the session that needs to be discussed, be sure to do so. This could be positive or negative. Maybe a developmental issue popped up that wasn’t part of what you were focusing on that day. Perhaps there was some really good energy you want to see repeated. Whatever it is, address it while it’s fresh and don’t miss a teaching opportunity.
Lay the groundwork
This is where you start looking forward to whatever is coming next. It might be as simple as, “We’re going to work on this again tomorrow.” If it was a session preparing for an upcoming match you can talk about how you want to see things implemented. The point is to leave the players with something to think about (maybe even do) between then and when you see them again.
End on a positive
No matter how the session went, do everything possible to end on a positive note. Remember what I said in Structure things to keep them coming back.
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