Writing in Governments –
State, Commonwealth and Agencies

Writing is often not the fun part of our job. It can be time consuming and sometimes it needs several rework attempts to get it right. Getting it right means that:

• Readers can understand the content on the first read
• It contains the right level of information for the decision maker
• It follows contemporary governmental writing protocols.

This training program is entirely focused on writing government documents. It will help to write any government document faster and to give greater clarity for the reader. We will use participant work as the basis for exercises. Participants will immediately apply what they learn to their own work and their colleagues’ writing, making the course far more interesting and relevant.

Duration

Options:

• One full-day face-to-face
• 2 x 3.5 hours live virtual training

Outcomes

Learn how to:

• Identify the reader and the purpose of the document
• Create a diagram to efficiently plan content and structure
• Compose tight sentences which highlight the main points for the reader
• Eliminate excess words in a document
• Use formatting techniques to assist readability
• Include key words to control the tone.

Are your briefs concise and strategic? Often writers are confused as to what is appropriate and inappropriate content for the Minister and senior officials to help them make their decisions. The reports often include too much detail and operational content which requires significant editing prior to submission.

This focused course helps government staff members write succinct and high-level reports. The workshop is tailored to focus on your specific documentation and develops the skills that help you write high level reports attracting minimal editing.

Duration

Options:

• One full-day face-to-face
• 2 x 3.5 hours live virtual training

Outcomes

Learn how to:

• Understand the purpose of a government and ministerial brief
• Identify the objectives of government and ministerial briefs
• Understand what information the readers need in reports to make their decisions
• Define the structure and purpose of the headings in the government and ministerial briefs templates
• Populate the government and ministerial brief templates with appropriate information
• Capture key information and write it succinctly with a logical flow
• Effectively construct sentences and paragraphs to increase readability
• Eliminate unnecessary words in a report.

Are the emails and letters generated by your team members in your department dated? Are they too officious, long winded or not focused on addressing the issues raised in incoming correspondence? A formal tone and inappropriate content can unintentionally offend internal and external customers and discredit your department’s credibility and customer cooperation.

This program focuses on your department’s documents and presents simple techniques to create high quality letters and emails quickly. Participants learn to write correspondence with a customer focused tone, whilst concisely addressing all the relevant issues.

Duration

Options:

• Half-day face-to-face
• 1 x 3.5 hours live virtual training

Outcomes

In this document writing course, you will learn how to:

• Isolate all key issues in the incoming correspondence that need addressing
• Prepare a diagrammatic tool to ensure relevant content and structure
• Compose concise and grammatically correct sentences with the reader in mind
• Use formatting techniques to isolate multiple issues within the document and enable quick comprehension
• Effectively include standard paragraphs
• Add in key words to control the tone such as empathy, cooperation, alliance or assertiveness.

Government departments are required to prepare detailed and lengthy analytical reports including an executive summary. But the summaries are hard to write. You have spent hours, days or even months researching and writing your report and subsequently it is hard to summarise the content into an executive summary. It often becomes more like an extension of the report’s objective without the required content or is a document with many ‘cut and pastes’ in it thereby presenting too much detail.

This course helps team members identify the appropriate information for an executive summary, given its purpose and reader. The workshop:

• is tailored to your department and focuses on your specific documentation
• develops the skills that help you write high level reports attracting minimal editing.

Duration

Options:

• Half-day face-to-face
• 1 x 3.5 hours live virtual training

Outcomes

Learn how to:

• Understand the purpose and reader of an executive summary
• Identify the objectives of an executive summary
• Define the structure headings in the executive summary
• Differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information for the executive summary
• Capture key information and write it succinctly with a logical flow
• Effectively construct sentences and paragraphs to increase readability
• Include formatting techniques to highlight key points
• Reduce the word count by up to 30 per cent.

We can also help you rewrite templates for responses that may need updating.

Writing minutes of meetings present great challenges to the author – concentrating during highly detailed conversations, capturing the right level of detail during the meeting and writing it up in a useful way for the attendees post meeting. Your minutes are powerful as they can become official records for the department and personally, can be a testimony to your competence.

This program presents many useful tips and templates to help you write accurate, organised and purposeful minutes quickly and confidently.

Duration

Options:

• Half-day face-to-face
• 1 x 3.5 hours live virtual training

Outcomes

Learn how to:

• Differentiate between good and poor minutes
• Use meeting documents to the ensure the best outcomes
• Prepare for a meeting
• Take notes within the meeting using a variety of methods
• Work with the chairperson throughout the meeting
• Identify appropriate information from the meeting notes to insert into the minutes
• Compose concise and grammatically correct sentences with the reader in mind
• Use formatting techniques to enable quick comprehension
• Eliminate unnecessary words from the minutes.

Do you have a team member who struggles with writing documents? The topic may jump around, it may include irrelevant or insufficient information, contain too many words or is grammatically incorrect?  You are faced with editing the document before it leaves your department and often, you end up re-writing it to meet a looming deadline. You track the changes hoping the team member will absorb your techniques only to find a subsequent document  presents the same issues.

This course will help you tackle the editing challenge, while coaching the team member.  It presents techniques to enhance the writing and ways to convey that to the team member to ensure skill acquisition.  It provides a refresher component for contemporary effective business writing techniques along with how to manage the team member’s development.

Duration

Options:

• Two hours face-to-face
• 1 x 2 hours live virtual training

Outcomes

In this Editing Skills for Leaders course you will learn how to:

• Conduct two sweeps for editing – content and wordsmithing
• Encourage the team member to profile and think like the reader to identify appropriate content
• Prepare and explain a diagrammatic tool to ensure relevant content and structure
• Compose tight sentences which highlight the main points for the reader
• Eliminate up to a third of unnecessary words in the document
• Use formatting techniques to assist readability
• Include key words to control the tone
• Provide constructive and positive feedback to a team member
• Manage the team member to meet deadlines and corrections.