Technical Writing: Proposals, Reports, E-mails, SWOT Analyses

Day 1:  The Basics

• The writing process
  • Defining the message
  • Organizing one’s thoughts
  • Outlining using a creative approach
  • Creating the first draft
  • Rewriting
  • The 24-hour test
  • Creating the final draft
  • Common errors
  • Group exercises
• Sentence structure
  • The four parts of every sentence
  • Active versus passive styles
  • Subject/verb agreement
  • Eliminating semantic noise
  • Appropriate sentence length
  • Common errors
  • Group exercises
• Paragraph structure
  • The topic sentence
  • Supporting sentences
  • Eliminating or moving unnecessary sentences
  • Internal consistency
  • Sentence-to-sentence continuity
  • Common errors
  • Group exercises
• Merging text and graphics
  • The ease of importing graphics
  • Graphics types and selection
  • Establishing the graphic’s message
  • Digital image considerations
  • Captioning graphics
  • Graphics location
  • Group exercises
• Reviewing and  rewriting revisited
  • Commonly misspelled words
  • Abbreviation practices
  • Finding and fixing spelling and grammar errors
  • Font selection
  • Attention to detail
  • The consequences of misspelling and grammar errors
  • Motivation
  • Group exercise
• E-mail etiquette
  • Spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation
  • Inappropriate e-mail topics
  • Maintaining a professional tone
  • Distribution
  • Unique e-mail hazards
  • Common e-mail errors

Day 2:  Proposals, Progress Reports, SWOT Analyses, and Course Wrap-Up

• Proposals
  • Proposal purposes
  • Defining RFP/RFQ requirements
  • Finding hidden requirements
  • Requirements responsiveness
  • Compliance cross-indices
  • Avoiding requirements regurgitation
  • Proposal scoring schemes
  • Proposal organization
  • Proposal themes
  • Identifying and projecting strengths without arrogance
  • Proposal scheduling
  • Error-free proposals
  • The importance of timely submittal
  • Proposal reviews
  • Proposal pricing considerations
  • Executive summaries
  • Common proposal mistakes
  • Group exercises
• Progress reports
  • Progress report purposes
  • Progress report organization
  • The importance of factual reporting
  • Time-phased, milestone-based plans
  • The spend plan
  • Using a single graphic to communicate status
  • Financial and schedule variance identification
  • Variance recovery approaches
  • Identifying cost and schedule risk
  • Risk management approaches
  • Estimating cost and schedule at completion
  • Asking for help
  • Maintaining a positive tone
  • Executive summaries
  • Appropriate progress report length
  • Common progress report mistakes
  • Group exercises
• Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) reports
  • Objectively identifying strengths without arrogance
  • Internal strength perceptions
  • Client strength perceptions
  • Identifying weaknesses
  • Internal weakness perceptions
  • Client weakness perceptions
  • Describing weaknesses without offending
  • Finding, evaluating, and prioritizing opportunities
  • Seeking and hearing external perceptions
  • Realistic threat identification
  • What-if analysis
  • Threat management approaches
  • Organizing the SWOT report
  • Executive summaries
  • Common SWOT analysis errors
  • Group exercises
• Concluding activities
  • Brevity’s advantages
  • Professionalism
  • Recap, Q/A, and evaluations