Why templates are worth investing in
A good template pays for itself many times over by recycling clarity rather than inefficiency.
Clients who revise ineffective templates find their:
documents are clearer, more readable, and more consistent
writers’ confidence and capacity to produce documents significantly increases
total writing and editing process time decreases considerably
Create strong templates (or update)
Some templates we’ve revised
Administrative law process letters
Briefing notes
Bylaws
Complaint response letters
Council reports
Environmental assessments
Environmental compliance standards
Interrelated policies and standard operating procedures
Human resources investigation reports
Systemic investigation reports
The process
We work with you to capture your best practices for structure, language, voice, and conventions
The steps
We meet with you to discuss your template, goals, and current problems.
We analyze a series of documents created using the template.
We revise or create a template to meet your goals and discuss it with you.
Together, we test the new template by creating and reviewing a draft document. We refine the template if necessary.
Optional—You train your staff to use the new template successfully.
What a strong template can do
We build templates that:
reflect the ideal structure, wording, and length of that document type
strengthen analysis by having a strong relationship between messages and details or evidence that supports them
eliminate repetition
make content readable, accessible, and suitable for the audience
reduce the number of decisions writer needs to make
include guidance to writers on what information goes where, the right level of detail to include, and how much flexibility they have
communicate organizational conventions and best practices
improve consistency
Our documents are more manageable to create, more effective for our readership, and take significantly less time to create.
— Head of a regulatory body
This has been a significant process improvement for our team. Because we write many complex reports, it has made it possible to get through our workload more efficiently.
—Law enforcement regulator
Having an outside view of the actual template and the process we go through was extremely helpful. We’re very pleased with the result.
— Deputy Minister in provincial government
