This longer section contains advice on these aspects:

• Why is it important to consider my audience before starting to develop the playbook?

• What can my sport’s long-term athlete development models do for me?

• How does the available practice time affect my system?

• Why is it sensible to develop a bit, teach this bit, develop more bits, teach these bits?

• How can I break down a load of information into teachable “bites”?

The greatest playbook does not help if your coaches can’t teach it, or if your athletes can’t learn it. 

So, you must have solid knowledge about what they are able to understand in general. Age, gender, language, general cognitive and athletic abilities have a strong influence. You also must develop an understanding of what skills they already have. Don't forget to think about what skills you can develop until they need to have them. In other words, is there enough practice time to teach it?

Let’s look at the abilities first. Many nations have created some form of long-term athlete development model. Most of the time there even are models for every major sport, per country. They lay out the typical abilities, challenges, goals, policies in more or less detail. You will find sections for every age group from 3 years old to adulthood and senior citizenship. Experts from many different fields create it. They distill their knowledge into a plan that you can use to your advantage.

These models tell you what you can expect from the typical 8-grade boy, or 6-grade girl. My favorite for American/Flag Football is Football Canada’s model. 

Second, the answer to the timing challenge, or how to find out if there is enough time to teach it. While you can estimate the time needed with good accuracy once you taught a system two or three times. i.e. two or three teams and seasons, you will find it difficult to know this if you created a new playbook.

Resist the urge to break all the material down by available calendar time. This might be a good exercise to do to check whether it is realistic enough, though. Still, it is very likely you will get behind your schedule.

It is much more sensible to combine playbook development with the necessary teaching. This means that you teach one piece at a time until everyone has mastered it to use in games. This prevents you from putting too much energy in creation. It also ensures that you don't fall behind your practice schedule.

You can use a similar approach if you already have a developed playbook that you would like to put in place. In this case, cut smaller increments out of the playbook. What are the most important two or three plays? Which ones would you run most often, according to your tactical model? Which ones need teaching that is essential for more advanced plays? Start with these and teach them. Don’t forget to strip them of everything you don’t need like now, like variation tags in the play call. They will only be relevant together with other plays. In Football, start with fewer formations and coverages.