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4 minute read
Producing informative yet succinct, and convincing briefings and submissions can drastically improve your ability to influence diverse audiences, key decision-makers, and stakeholders.
Whether you're experienced or new to writing briefs, it's crucial that you can write them effectively.
Making small changes to your current writing style will help you write in a more productive way to create persuasive briefs to ensure your message is received.
That's where our Effective Briefings and Submissions training course comes in.
Here's everything you need to know.
Firstly, What is a Brief?
A brief is a concise yet informative document that effectively communicates complex and crucial information to diverse audiences, stakeholders and decision-makers.
The main goal is to help the reader understand, and likely make decisions about the issue in question.
Briefs may also give objective summaries of relevant research, offer possible policy solutions, or go even further and suggest particular courses of action.
A Quick Introduction to Our Effective Briefings and Submissions Training Course
Our Effective Briefings and Submissions training has been designed to give you a better understanding of how to write more concise, compelling and clear briefings and submissions.
When you are time poor, but information rich, it is essential that you are able to create briefings and submissions that have value, rather than volume.
On this course, you will develop an array of tried and tested time-saving tools and transferable skills to apply back to your brief writing, in just one day.
This course is led by Media & Communications Specialist, Sue Calthorpe.
With over 40 years of professional writing experience, Sue has worked closely with many organisations on various forms of writing. These include emails, report writing, briefing and submissions and more.
Sue's various clients include Legal & General, HSBC, BRIT, the Law Society, the Civil Aviation Authority, Express Medicals Ltd and more.
Learn more about Sue and her experience as a communications specialist here.
Who Will Benefit from Our Effective Briefings and Submissions Training?
- Individuals or teams who work in policy, research, or any job roles responsible for creating briefs and want to improve their skills.
- Individuals or teams who have recently moved into a role which requires writing briefs and want to learn the fundamentals.
How Will This Course Be Delivered?
We offer this course in two ways; bespoke and tailored for your team or an open course for individuals from across the public sector
This course is also available in various formats, including virtual sessions conducted via Zoom, in-person meetings at our numerous venues, and for added convenience, we can bring the course directly to your organization's doorstep.
The 5 Main Parts of Effective Briefings and Submissions Training
The course breaks up into five essential parts. These cover: your current writing environment, organising information, writing, editing, and finally reviewing your brief.
1. The current environment in which you are writing
The context of your writing will vary on a case-by-case basis and therefore vastly alter the copy you produce. However, all organisations will usually have common challenges and common practices in how they approach writing briefs.
For example, the matter of catering towards an increasingly distracted society. A study undertaken by Gloria Mark, PhD reveals that we now “only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds.”
Any good writing requires adequate planning. Before writing, it is important that you consider the needs of the reader. You should understand who they are, and how they will use the information that you are providing.
Sue will supply an effective writing model which will help shave 1/3 time off your writing process and encourage best writing practice.
2. How you organise information
As well as exemplary templates and headings, Sue also delves into the science behind how we read when we are accessing information on a digital screen vs paper.
There have been numerous studies to support the idea that we comprehend information better on paper than we do when reading in a digital format.
With this in mind, you will be introduced to effective writing structures that will help enhance your reader's reading experience.
3. Writing Your Brief
Every word counts when writing a brief, so it is important that your brief is accurate, succinct, and clear.
Having your reader in mind while writing is important. For example, the language you use should be inclusive. You shouldn't use jargon that only your organisation/industry will understand. If technical language is necessary, you should explain its meaning to take the reader on the journey with you.
As a part of this section, you will work in smaller groups to write a briefing. Some important questions to consider while planning your briefing include:
- Is the title clear, memorable, and understandable?
- Is the purpose clear?
- Do we know what the briefing is about?
- Does it have a good clear narrative flow?
- What is your reader's level of knowledge?
- What is your readers level of interest?
See our Writing Briefs for Government and Public Sector: 4 Steps to Success blog for more tips.
4. Editing Skills
Good editing is one the most important writing skills you can possess.
During this section, you will put your editing skills to the test by reading through 12 pages of letters. Then, you will summarise these pages into just 100 words in 10 minutes.
When you are time poor, but information rich, it is essential that you are able to sift through large amounts of information to extract the important details.
Learn more about presenting complex information with simplicity.
5. Reviewing
Once you have drafted and edited your brief, it’s time for the final review.
Getting a fresh pair of eyes to glance over this document may help spotting anything you might have missed.
Refer to the questions outlined in step 3. Does your brief tick each box?
What Previous Delegates Have Said About Our Effective Briefings and Submissions Training Course
We are proud to receive such positive feedback from a range of public sector professionals who have attended this course. See our array of testimonials from previous delegates:
“Sue was amazing and engaging. She made it straightforward and simple to understand, what could have been a very dry subject.” - Public Liaison Officer, DVSA
“Really great, knowledgeable, enthusiastic trainer who gave excellent and relevant advice to upskill everyone." - Policy, Public Affairs and Campaigns Manager, Guide Dogs for the Blind
“A very enjoyable and informative day that is packed with handy, easy to understand information. I felt that this was tailored very well to my job role." - Corporate Liaison Manager
“Brilliant insight into drafting effective documents and to understand my work from the reader’s perspective”- Corporate Liaison Manager, DVSA
“The day course was so informative with some great tips to improve my professional writing. The trainer was very engaging and a delight to listen to. The personalisation of the content made the learning real.”- Senior Programme Lead, NHSE
See which courses other public sector professionals are booking with on our list of the most in-demand training courses here.
Are You Interested in Attending?
We offer our Effective Briefings and Submissions training course in two ways; bespoke and tailored for your team or an open course for individuals from across the public sector.
See our available open course training dates on our agenda page here. If you are interested in arranging an in-house session for your organisation, please see below to make an enquiry.
