Introduction
I’ve spent much of the summer working with CAST on a project for British Cycling. We’ve been busy designing and building the Youth Development Framework (pictured above) to help coaches inspire young riders to stay engaged, improve their skills and celebrate progress.
Challenge
British Cycling have developed a framework covering 4 rider levels and over 100 skills (diagram below). Following a successful pilot led by British Cycling, CAST were brought in to create an MVP and plan a beta test, as a way to further learn and develop towards a final product. CAST invited me to help with design and build.
Project approach and timeline
We’ve been pedalling steadily on the project for 4 months. The core team:
- Melissa Teasdale (Product Owner) from British Cycling
- Ellen Smyth (Product Lead) from CAST
- Me! (Design Lead)
Nick Barr from British Cycling and Dan Sutch from CAST have provided strategic oversight and a healthy dose of challenges throughout the project.
Our work has involved research, design, development and test planning.
- July — Immersion, discovery and interviews
- August — proposition development, testing and iterations
- September — UX, MVP development and beta test planning
- October —Finalise MVP, recruit beta testers and onboarding
- Nov to Jan 2025 — Beta test with clubs and commercial support
Outputs and feedback so far
The core outputs so far:
- Discovery playback — Key insights, UX development and beta planning
- MVP — Accessible digital tool, with framework, resources and guides
Last week, 38 clubs attended the Youth Development Framework Induction Webinar, hosted by Melissa. Nearly 80 people joined. On the whole, coaches were enthusiastic about taking the framework for a spin.
The webinar was a great way to introduce coaches to the framework. Better still, we started to get feedback. Much of it positive and validating. Some of it more critical, highlighting potential challenges.
“Some interesting ideas and a huge amount of content. Looking forward to going away and exciting the club coaches and young riders with some testing. Looks like a great start, well done.” — Simon
“Hi, as a first stage I’m encouraged by the effort to put together a structured plan for the kids we coach. This will evolve based on feedback and I think prove very worthwhile. You have my interest to find ways forward with this especially as it is flexible to embed current club plans. Thank you.” — Andy
“I enjoyed looking around the app — it was good to see the range of core skills and environment elements across disciplines. I think we will look at how we can use this as a club and then decide the best way to work — bringing in the young riders and youth coaches in to help with this too.” — Nicky
“We have a reward system based on competitions throughout the year in various disciplines. I think this will dovetail well with that.” — Ian
“The key test of the app is if it can be used easily by a coach on a wet cold winters day with loads of kids mingling around getting cold. If it can be updated easily, the kids get quick feedback as to their progress and their performance tracked easily.” — Giles
Next steps
Melissa and the team at British Cycling are now running the beta test. They’ll support coaches to use and integrate the framework at their clubs, finding ways to track and celebrate rider progress. There’ll be a Community Webinar every two weeks, where coaches will be able to ask questions, share progress and support each other.
I can’t wait to see how the cycling community puts this framework through its paces during the beta test.
Gratitude
I’m super-grateful to work on this project. It combines what I’m good at (designing & making) with things I’m passionate about (cycling, education and nurturing the next generation). Thank you CAST for inviting me to work on this. Thank you Ellen and Melissa for being awesome team-mates.
Related post, written by Ellen: Getting curious (and cycling) with British Cycling and 39 clubs
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