Drive better, more efficient decision making at a much lower cost
Briefing notes are among the most important—and most time-consuming—documents government and policy professionals write. These courses are built from our four decades of briefing-note experience. We train drafters to:
create shorter, more focused briefing notes
deliver much stronger analysis
cut the time and cost to create briefings in half
significantly reduce review cycles
Briefing notes courses
Learn core skills
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Briefing Notes for Beginners
Define what a briefing note is, why it matters, how to approach the writing, and how to use templates effectively.
In-house and live virtual training
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Effective Briefing Note Writing
Develop the core skills all briefing note writers need. Learn a precise process to create strong, focused briefings make judgment calls more confidently.
Self-paced, in-house, and virtual options
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Effective Briefing Note Writing and Reviewing for Leaders
Review briefing notes more efficiently, give stronger guidance to writers, and improve your team’s process time.
In-house and live virtual training
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Effective Briefing Note Editing
Learn to identify and resolve issues, create strong briefing notes, and work faster. This course includes a takeaway checklist.
Self-paced, in-house, and live virtual options
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Effective Briefing Note Proofreading
Put the final polish on strong briefing note content. This is practical, hands-on training to catch errors and improve consistency.
In-house and live virtual training
Go deeper: build on core skills
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Use AI to Think More Deeply and Get Smarter
Get the right relationship with AI as an analysis tool. Use it to gather information, test assumptions, identify risks, and develop capacity for more thorough and refined thinking.
In-house and virtual options
Self-paced online course **coming soon**
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Advanced Briefing Note Writing
Deepen your skill by working with complex issues, multiple options, tricky messaginng, and detailed data and evidence. Give decision makers the best possible information.
In-house, and virtual options
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Streamline the Writing and Review Process
Analyze process steps and time for the briefing note drafting, reviewing, and finalizing cycle in your organization. We help you identify inefficiencies, cut time, resolve back-and-forth cycles, and create stronger end products.
In-house and live virtual training
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Write Effectively as a Team
Learn best practices to manage the process to draft a document when multiple writers are involved. Use an orderly, efficient process to create clear content with less stress.
In-house and live virtual options
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We teach internationally established best practices for clarity, as well as a new staged process to help participants reduce writing and review time.
We suggest taking the core course before our document- or skill-specific training because it covers foundational content.
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These courses teach writers how to:
work skillfully with key documents that governments and regulators produce regularly, like briefing notes and decisions
avoid the pitfalls for that document type
write clearly and quickly under pressure
use templates effectively
gain from others’ experience with these types of documents
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These courses focus on and strengthen certain skills your team may need, depending on what they write. These include:
editing and proofreading
delivering negative messages
writing complex documents with multiple drafters
Ask us if you need a course you don’t see here.
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If you prefer to work at your own pace, check out our online school. We offer:
a roughly 12-hour course called Briefing Note Fundamentals
coffee-break courses that are densely packed mini modules you can take in 40 to 60 minutes
Our current coffee-break courses are:
Why workplace writing is difficult and often unclear (it’s not you)
How to structure documents for readability
The best style for modern workplace writing
More coming soon!
Choose training that fits your needs
We offer on-site training, live webinars, and self-paced online courses. Each workshop is customized to your organization and group.
Our workshops
Some of our clients
Alberta Energy Regulator
British Columbia Financial Services Authority
British Columbia Securities Commission
Canada Energy Regulator
Canadian Human Rights Commission
Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization
Cities of Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Vancouver, and more
Civilian Review and Complaint Commission for RCMP
Federal and provincial governments (across nearly every ministry)
Local Government Administrative Association of Alberta
Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board
Municipal governments across Canada
Nunavut Impact Review Board
Office of the Veterans Ombudsman
Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments
Workers’ Compensation Board
Other related courses
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Deliver Negative Messages Skillfully
Write professional and respectful messages when readers may not want to hear what you have to say
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Build Strong Rationale
Focus on creating strong, evidence-based analysis in any type of document
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Write to Persuade
Learn to write in a powerful, compelling, and clear style and build a reputation for clarity
What we teach your people to do
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30 words
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32 words
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“One of the best workshops I've attended. Inspiring and motivating to get better at writing."
Councillor for City of Medicine Hat
(5 star Google review) -
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"Sessions were well led by presenters who were very aware of the briefing note process in government. This meant I was able to get maximum value from the information."
Manager at Alberta Education
(5 star Google review) -
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"Wordsmith facilitators are as confident, clear and helpful as your writing aims to be. More to learn about effective writing than many might think."
Policy Analyst at Alberta Education
(5 star Google review) -
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"This was the most immediately applicable training I have ever taken. Our whole team got excited. We went back and applied what we learned to our Proposal Guide and cut the page count by 50%."
Manager of the Cumulative Impacts Monitoring Program
