Effective Minute Taking and Report Writing Skills Training Course

Why select this training course?

Good writing is more than just words on a page. It is your voice and the way you express ideas. You want to impress your audience so that they understand the core of what you are saying in each message. Good business writing can influence the tone and, thereby, your reader’s emotions. Business writing is often quick to make assumptions and may not always be as clear as it could be, so it’s important to ensure your business writing inspires confidence in your company by writing consistently good prose.

What are the benefits of report writing skills?

A report is structured and specific in the way that it presents information. It tells a clear story, often giving a start, build, and finish to situations. Taking a report might be the most common form of assessment in your workplace. Writing a report is a great way to demonstrate what you have learned and include evidence that supports your conclusions. By presenting and evaluating several sorts of pertinent data for the topic you are researching, reports can highlight what you have learned from your reading, study, and experience.

Why does every professional need good writing skills?

Minute-taking and report writing apply to any business, whether you are a start-up or an established company. Attention should be paid to each aspect of your writing to establish credibility, trustworthiness, and the business message. Meetings should be documented in minutes. Meeting minutes are like a motion for approval and planning, but they also let you revisit decisions and work as guidelines for unplanned meetings. Minute writing is a simple yet vital tool to track what happens in a meeting. They can be used to inform people who couldn’t attend the meeting about what happened or to keep track of things that happened during the meeting so that you can revisit them and use them to inform future decisions.

In Rcademy’s Effective Minute Taking and Report Writing Skills Training Course, you’ll learn how to write meeting minutes and reports that are informative, interesting, and attractive to your readers. You will master using different forms of evidence in your reports, such as tables, graphs, photos, and summaries. You will also learn how to write better paragraphs for effective communication and maximize reader engagement. We work with you to define how we can help you reach this objective and ensure our process lends itself well to your specific goals.

Who should attend?

The course is apt for professionals from all walks of life:

• Senior executives and leaders
• Departmental heads and managers
• Government officials
• Business administrators
• Team leaders and managers
• Office manager, secretary, and clerk
• Entrepreneurs and start-up founders

What are the course objectives?

The course has been developed with the following objectives:

• To understand the basics of efficient business writing
• To understand the use of minutes to convey necessary information
• To develop skills for effective minute writing
• To learn to successfully organize and categorize information for business writing
• To assist in managerial decision-making through useful report writing and presentation skills
• To gain knowledge of various tools and techniques used in the preparation of business writing
• To gain an understanding of the means of internal communication
• To understand methods for data collection, presentation, and summarisation

How will the course be presented?

• Interactive sessions
• Use of case studies
• Management games
• Learning preparation of reports, charts, graphs
• Real-time exercises
• Problem-solving and Group discussion sessions

What are the topics covered?

Module 1: Business Writing 

• What is business writing
• Purpose of business writing
• Instructional business writing
• Informational business writing
• Persuasive business writing
• Transactional business writing
• Principles of good business writing

Module 2: What are Minutes?

• Elements of a minute
• Minutes of narration
• Minutes of resolution
• Differentiating between agenda and minute

Module 3: Preparation before the Meeting

• Selecting the platform
• Looking at previous minutes for clues
• Obtaining the meeting agenda
• Informal or formal meeting
• Arriving early
• Seating chart
• Minute template

Module 4: Minute Taking during the Meeting

• Tap into your listening skills
• Summarising
• Recording motions
• Tips on what to record and what not to record
• How to record
• Emotionless recording
• Importance of bullet lists
• Tips for interrupting in between for clarification

Module 5: Minute Taking in Special Situations

• When the meeting moves off the agenda
• If an argument breaks out
• Using terminology that the minute taker doesn’t understand

Module 6: Turning Minutes into Action Plans

• What happens next?
• Action minutes
• Recording only decisions
• Mention action steps

Module 7: After the Meeting

• Creating a draft
• Using attachments
• Forwarding the draft
• Making corrections
• Master book
• Indexing

Module 8: Introduction to Report Writing

• What is a report?
• Purpose of writing a report
• Report for internal communication
• Report structure
• Executive summary in the report
• Findings and Recommendations section
• Importance of references

Module 9: Prerequisites to Report Writing

• Ask yourself: what should be the starting point
• Beginning with data gathering
• Preparing an outline of the report
• Organizing information into horizontal plans
• Mind maps

Module 10: Writing Style

• Know your target audience
• Using technical jargon
• Active voice
• Writing univocally

Module 11: Presentation of the Report

• Chapterisation and creating sections
• Type of paragraphs
• Developing tables and figures
• Drawing charts and graphs
• Questionnaire

Module 12: Tools for Presentation of Data in Excel 

• Column charts
• Bar charts
• Pie charts
• Scatter charts
• Creating and managing charts

Module 13: Report Writing Checklist 

• Checking for the report
• Proper title page
• Ensuring numbering and table of contents
• Importance of conclusions and recommendations
• Ensure precise and unambiguous writing style
• Checking the visual appearance
• Citations and references