Advanced Report Writing Skills Course

Course Title:      Effective Report Writing & Presentation Skills Training.

Course Description

If you are a manager or officer at any level in Business, Government, Non-Governmental organization or industry, you must write reports. Whether you want to or not, you write to explain things, to smooth relationships and to convince others of the value of some course of action. Writing must be clear, concise, complete, and correct. It must also convey your message in a courteous tone. This training will help you to acquire persuasive report writing skills.

By the end of this course, you will be able develop an effective report and you also; Identify the main obstacles to effective Report Writing and how to avoid them; Understand the nature of a Technical Report and Project Report; write from the perspective of the writer and the target audience and make convincing presentations.

Main Training Modules.

Advanced report writing skills

• The functions of communication
• Barriers to effective communication
• Advanced report writing skills – Sentences; tips on joining words and punctuation
• Some common report writing faults to avoid
• Writing good paragraphs
• Transitions and ordering the parts
• Overcoming writer’s block: subjectivity, objectivity and bias
• Mapping your business process for effective communication and report writing
• Data collection and analysis for report writing
• Writing of project proposals and technical reports
• Project progress report template

Reporting Scope and Structure

• Key principles and definitions
• Scoping a report based on your objectives
• Organizing content to match audience
• Developing a compelling storyboard using Pyramid Principle
• Situation
• Complication
• Question
• Answer (how, why, or what)
• Key Lines
• Achieving flow through effective transitioning
• Deductive reasoning
• Abductive arguments
• Content, Substance and Getting You Message Clear
• Planning for the perfect presentation
• Seven step preparation model
• Researching the audience and setting time related objectives
• Reference materials that form part of the knowledge bank of the organization – Documentary evidence of investigation or validation of products and processes

 Information Uses

• Information is used for three main areas
• Planning activities
• Monitoring activities
• Controlling activities
• Information will flow between all three

Information Mapping

• Information mapping is designed to allow the information to be presented in its most useful format – Analysis Key areas – purpose, audience needs, information types
• Organization -To create an overall structure based on results of the analysis
• Presentation -To format the information to make it accessible to the intended audience; this involves some translation.

Repurposing Reports for Presentations

• Fundamentals of data visualization
• Gene Zelazny’s Approach to visual aids
• Determining message (Purpose, audience & key idea)
• Design principles for creating high-impact slides in PowerPoint
• How to structure your slide presentation – examples
• Time-saving tips to create PowerPoint slides in a hurry
• The use of templates, colour, shapes, and design tips
• How to create notes, handouts and using as a presenter
• Creating a ‘map’ for your audience

Advanced Presentation Skills

• Getting interaction and engagement
• Handling questions and staying on track
• Sources of images, artwork, and video
• Embedding video, graphs, pictures, and other elements
• Using transitions, animation and creative effective
• How to make your own video presentations using PowerPoint
• Venue considerations and why they are so important
• Identifying comparison (Component, time-series, item, frequency & correlation)
• Selecting chart type (Column, bar, pie, line & bubble)

Way forward After the Training

Participants will develop a work plan through the help of facilitators that stipulates application of skills acquired in improving their organizations. ASPM will monitor implementation progress after the training.

Training Evaluation:

Participants will undertake a simple assessment before the training to gauge knowledge and skills in the field and another assessment will be done after the training in-order to monitor knowledge gained through the training.