Writing and Polishing Effective Procedures
Course Description
This seminar is designed for professionals who need to write or edit procedures or processes. Participants learn a simple, fast and effective method of writing instructions that are easy to follow. This helpful and timesaving seminar empowers employees to write procedures that produce results—from simple desk processes to complex user guides.
Benefits
Few activities offer a greater ROI than writing effective procedures. A small initial investment can continue to produce results over time, with no additional effort or expense.
Whether asking employees to document important job functions or standardizing operations for a broad audience, well-written procedures offer the following benefits:
- Keep business continuity through mergers, acquisitions, and disasters
- Reduce errors
- Improve company image
- Decrease training time for new employees
- Reduce time for the performance of tasks
- Minimize the disruption of operations during employee absences
- Comply with laws governing operations
- Maintain consistent quality in the performance of tasks
- Measure the quality of an employee’s work
Target Audience
This course is recommended for anyone who must write instructions for others to follow. Both novice and seasoned technical writers consistently find it to be a worthwhile investment.
Course Length: One-day: 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Course Objectives
Participants learn a simple task analysis process that makes managing and writing projects quick and easy. People are amazed at how simple procedure writing can be when using these skills:
- Mapping out a task before writing it
- Highlighting key points for non-technical audiences
- Using the 11 basic formats for procedures
- Organizing the document in a logical, sequential manner
- Using bullets, indentations and headings to make the organization visually apparent to the reader
- Writing clear, concise language to communicate technical information
Program Design
Writing and Polishing Effective Procedures is a learning and development process, not a training event. It consists of the following elements:
Seminar Outline
First Half-day Seminar
- Pre-test of competency
- 15 vital characteristics of well-written procedures
- How to get users to follow procedures
- Basic rules for writing procedures
Second Half-day Seminar
- Simple task analysis
- 11 formats for displaying process flows
- Planning and managing the project
- Re-writes of pre-seminar procedures
Equipment Requirements
It would be great if you could provide the following room set-up and equipment:
- The training room set up in pods of 6 – 8 people or U-shape.
- LCD projector
- Flipchart
- Ten magic marker pens
- Roll of masking tape
Free Post-Seminar Support
In keeping with our commitment to offer a learning and development process, not a training event, we offer a number of free value-added resources and opportunities to assist seminar participants to become more productive on the job. Upon course completion, participants are invited to do the following:
- Assess their knowledge by taking our Free Writing Assessments: http://berrywritinggroup.com/assessment/index.html
- Refresh their memory by previewing chapter one of our Writing to Get Things Done® online course: http://berrywritinggroup.com/online/WGTD.html
- Strengthen their understanding by reading articles in our Business Writing Tips Archive at: http://berrywritinggroup.com/freetips.html
- Gain new insights from our monthly Business Writing Tips articles: http://berrywritinggroup.com/freetips.html
- Execute their 30-day Work Plan near the back of their course workbook.
- Send us post-seminar writing samples for feedback at: Info@BerryWritingGroup.com.
