Roll out player development plans
Put a development plan in front of every player in your programme. Players reflect first, coaches make their call and choose the focus, your curriculum supplies the goals, you approve, and families respond.
An Individual Development Plan is where your programme's philosophy reaches one player: two or three goals with dates, focus areas across the four corners, the coach's view, and the player's own reflection. Done well, it's the document a family keeps coming back to all season. IDPs in your programme sidebar is where you launch the plans and keep the standard high.
- IDPs appears in your sidebar once the club switches the module on for your programme.
- Set up your Season Plan first. Plan reviews fall due at your in-season blocks, so the season's shape decides when they happen.
- Coaches build most plans, so make sure each squad has its coaching staff assigned.
- Publish your programme's curriculum before the first plan is started. Every goal in every plan is built from it.
Coaches will write to whatever standard you set, so set it before the first draft arrives. It is far easier to hold a line you drew at the start than to correct forty plans at the end.
- Your curriculum writes the goals. Coaches decide what a player should work on. The goal itself comes from the programme's published Curriculum, so the quality of every plan is set by the quality of that curriculum (Shape your development curriculum).
- Focus beats coverage. One or two focus areas a block, worked on properly, beat a list of everything a player could improve.
- Ownership grows with age. A younger player's plan is led by the coach. An older player should own theirs, reflection included.
- Every plan speaks the club's language. A family should recognise the programme's philosophy, not one coach's private approach. Your grounding documents in Settings → Key Documents and the curriculum are where that language lives.
If your programme hasn't started yet, the IDP section tells you when it will. Once curriculum goals are published it offers Review the curriculum, and it links to the first season's squads. Plans open at preseason.
When a window arrives, you open it from the Cycle screen, squad by squad: Open Preseason Player Assessment to begin the season, then a block review button for each in-season block. A button you can't use says why, for example Already opened this season.
Every plan starts with the player's own honest look at their game. A plan built on the player's view of themselves is one they'll actually own, and it gives the coach a far better conversation to start from. So you open the season by inviting the players, not by asking coaches to write.
- Open IDPs. Until you've sent anything, it opens on Self-assessment invites: every active player in the programme, squad by squad.
- Confirm each player's position. The questions a player answers depend on their position, so check the suggested one on every row and change it where it's wrong. Your picks save to the player's profile as you go. A player with no position is highlighted in amber, and invites can't go out until they have one.
- Invite a squad with the button on its header, which counts who is still to go (Invite 10 players), or everyone at once with Invite all remaining. A window then names the squad and every player being invited, and shows the invite word for word. Send invites to 10 players sends them, and Not yet closes it without sending.
Check the position on every row (1) before you send, then invite the squad (2). The strip across the top tracks the whole programme's self-assessments, from Not started through to Coach drafting. A padlock means that player has already started, so their position can no longer be changed here.
Each family is invited and each squad's coaches are told, so nobody hears about it from a parent first. A player who has already been invited is never invited twice.
While players are still waiting for an invite, an Invites tab shows how many are left. Treat it as your rollout progress. When someone signs mid-season, they appear there so you can invite them too.
The invite arrives on the family's phone under the player's name:
Self-assessment ready for Luca Novak Tap to start the self-assessment together — takes ~10 minutes.
Tapping it opens the first question, not a menu:
The family works through the four corners of the game, one step at a time (1). Every question has the same three honest answers (2): Strength (You consistently do this well), Building (You can do this most of the time) and Focus area (You want to work on this). The questions come from the position you confirmed, which is why that step matters: get it wrong and a striker ends up answering a winger's questions.
The self-assessment is due ten days after the invite unless a different date has been set. If it isn't finished, the family gets a reminder three days out and another on the day, and those reminders name the date.
At the same moment, each squad's coaches get a short summary:
Self-assessments sent — BYL U13 10 families have been invited to complete their player self-assessments.
To see the whole experience from the family's side, including who should fill it in and what happens after they send it, read Your child's development plan.
As each self-assessment comes in, that player moves onto the coach's IDPs list, ready to plan. The coach works through four steps: Review, Focus Areas, Goals and Confirm. The player's view is where the plan starts, but the coach makes the football call at every step.
A coach can't start a plan until the player's self-assessment is in. So if a squad's plans have stalled, look at the self-assessments first. The player is usually the one to chase, not the coach.
The coach goes through every attribute, one at a time, and makes their own call on it: Strength, Building or Focus area. The player's answer sits directly above the coach's choice, so the two views are read together and never blended into one.
Roman rated himself Building on scanning (1), and the coach now makes their own call (2). Wherever the coach disagrees with the player, or marks something a focus area, they write a short note saying why. Those notes are the most valuable part of the plan, because they turn a rating into something a player can act on: "you said Building, I see a focus area, and this is what I'm watching for." The tally along the bottom keeps count of the coach's calls as they go. For a player who had a plan last season, each card also carries a quiet Last season line with how the coach, the player and a parent rated the same attribute then, so the coach can see what has moved.
Everything the coach rated a focus area carries forward. The coach then picks the ones the player will actually work on this block: usually one or two, and never more than four. A block is only a few weeks long. A player working on two things gets better at both, and a player working on six gets better at none.
The coach ticks the focus areas for this block (1). The ones left out aren't dropped for good; the player can take them on in a later block or season. Then Create goals (2) moves to the goals.
For a returning player, the same step has a folded Last season section: last season's focus areas, each goal with its outcome, and any off-field goals. Carry on on a goal makes its attribute one of this block's focus areas, still within the limit of four. The goal itself is built fresh from this season's curriculum, so a carried goal is in this season's words, not last season's. A goal whose attribute isn't in this season's framework can't be carried, which is common when a player has changed programme.
The coach doesn't write goals from a blank page. Clubhouse builds one goal for each focus area from your programme's published curriculum, shaped to the player's position, age group and the dates of the block. That's deliberate. Every player in your programme working on scanning gets the same well-made goal, in your club's football language, whichever coach they have. Consistency across forty plans comes from the curriculum, not from forty coaches trying to write alike.
Each goal sets out what the coach will build into training (1) and what the player does in those sessions, plus a quick self-check later in the block (2). Underneath, it says how everyone will know the goal has been achieved. The coach reads each goal but can't change it, which keeps every plan in the curriculum's words. If a goal needs different wording for one player, you can edit it when the plan reaches you. The coach's own words go in a short personal message to the family, which is required before they move on.
If a focus area has no published curriculum goal yet, the coach sees No published curriculum yet, and the plan can't go to you with that focus area in it. That one is on your side: publish the missing goal in Shape your development curriculum and the coach can carry on.
The last step shows the whole plan the way the family will see it. The coach reads it through, chooses Submit for approval, and it lands in your To do.
If a player's position was wrong, it depends on whether they've started. Before they start, change it on Review positions. Once they've started, choose Change position. It shows exactly which ratings and goals will move before you confirm, and it stops you if a goal doesn't fit the new position until you've edited or removed it. Nothing a player recorded is ever swapped out quietly.
To do is where the IDP section opens, and it only holds work that needs you. That keeps it short enough to clear every day.
- Plans waiting for your approval. This is where you hold the line you set at the start. There's more on reviewing a plan below.
- Concerns from families. Once the concern has been talked through, choose Addressed on the row. The confirm counts the player's family and quotes the notification, then Mark addressed and notify (with the count) tells them it's been dealt with.
- Follow-ups. A family's check-in that the coach hasn't answered within 48 hours. It's on your list because the reply is overdue, not because it's yours to answer, though you can: open the row, reply in the plan's thread, and your name goes on the reply. When you finish one plan, the footer takes you to the next.
Opening a plan from To do shows it the way the family will see it, with the coach's working underneath:
The coach's message to the family (1) and each goal are yours to edit. Add focus area (2) adds another goal from the curriculum if the coach has missed something important. A goal the coach carried on from last season has a Carried on from 2026 tag beside its corner label, and the family sees the same tag. Below the goals are the coach's notes from Review. The player's own words stay between you and the coach; the coach's notes go out with the plan.
At the foot of the plan you make the decision:
Approve & publish (1) first opens a window listing who will be told: the player, if they have their own login, and each parent. Publish and notify 3 people makes the plan live and sends it to the family straight away, and Not yet closes the window with nothing published. If you changed the goals, the coach is told what you changed, and the window counts them in too. Request changes (2) sends your note back to the coach only, and the family hears nothing until you approve.
The family's notification reads:
IDP published for Luca Novak Tap to view goals.
Tapping it opens the plan, goal by goal:
A family's check-in belongs to the player's coach first, and only reaches you when it goes stale. That's what keeps your list worth reading.
Two more views show the same work from different angles:
- Players: every player in the programme, grouped by squad, with each squad's plan progress in its header. Open any player to check in or step in. It shows your programme's own current season, and once the programme has plans in more than one season, a Season dropdown looks back at an earlier one.
- Activity: everything happening across the programme, whether or not it needs anyone. Check-ins, clips, coach replies, self-assessments, published plans, and family acknowledgements and concerns. Filter by Status, Squad, Kind or Who, or search for a player, then open any row to read the conversation and reply.
Tip: If Activity is busy and To do is empty, your programme is healthy. The coaches are answering their own families, and that's the state you're working towards.
A plan written in preseason and never reopened is just paperwork. The reviews your Season Plan sets are what make it a development tool. When each block's window arrives, open its review from the Cycle screen. Recording a player's review completes their block. Expect a wave of coach assessments and player reflections in Activity, and a few more drafts in To do.
The parent-meeting windows in your Season Plan are the natural time for coaches to talk each family through the plan face to face. The meeting order lives on each squad's card in Players. As a meeting window approaches, the same page offers Create round to set the meetings up, or reminds you if the window has slipped.
Once the round is open for booking, Clubhouse asks Ready to invite them to book? and counts the families squad by squad. Send 18 invitations (the count is yours) sends each family a notification such as Book Milan's review, naming the round, its days and its venue, with tap to pick a time, while Later leaves an Invite button on the round. Tapping the notification takes the family straight to booking a time:
At the end of the year, the plans themselves have to finish. Once your programme moves to next season, its home page lists what's still open on the old one, including unfinished development plans. That line says when they will close by themselves, for example "Any 2026 development plans still open will be closed on 2 Nov", which is four weeks after the move. On that night every plan still open on 2026 is closed, and any review block still open is skipped. Reviews already recorded are kept.
To finish sooner, choose Close out 2026 IDPs on the same line. The confirmation lists what it will close, squad by squad, and warns that the move to 2027 can't be undone afterwards. Families and coaches are not notified. Roll into next season covers the move and the rest of that list.
Last season's plans stay readable. In Players, choose the old season from the Season dropdown. A band reads, for example, 2026: previous season, read-only., and each squad lists everyone who had a plan that season. Opening a player shows their plan as it was left, with nothing you can change. Players at the top of the plan takes you back to the same season.
- The Invites count reaches zero, so every player is in.
- Self-assessments are coming back and coaches' drafts are reaching your To do.
- Each squad in Players shows published plans, not drafts sitting idle.
- Concerns and check-ins in Activity are being answered, mostly by coaches rather than by you.
Last reviewed 14 Oct 2026
Was this page helpful?