Business Writing 101

Overview

This course guides newly hired project specialists to communicate effectively with their project manager, and their team, at any stage of a project's lifecycle.

The Client's Problem

This course imagines a project manager who came to me asking for help to improve internal communication within their team. Their company is rapidly expanding and their team is comprised of mostly new hires. They are receiving complaints from experienced project specialists that newly hired employees lack project communication skills and this results in missed deadlines that affect the whole team.

I asked clarifying questions and the project manager said the newly hired employees wrote vague requests for what they needed and did not account for other team members’ project roles.

The Solution

I consider myself an SME in project communication. I have experience owning all states of a project lifecycle. I decided that an eLearning solution would be the best solution. New hires could take the course and practice the skills on their own, then use these skills immediately when they communicate with their project team and stakeholders. I decided the most effective way to teach better project communication was to teach a single principle, what I call "needs-based communication." I would train new employees to practice this principle so they could invoke other skills they already had to write effective internal communication at any stage of a project lifecycle.

This writing course could be integrated into the organization's onboarding training.

Design Theory

My goal for this course was to raise awareness of the newly hired employee's work needs as a project member and the needs of their team members. When employees hold these two, often conflicting realities in focus, they communicate in a way that raises the team's efficacy to meet deadlines. The art of project management is to bring people together to complete multiple tasks, while every team member and stakeholder has a full-time job that often pulls them away from the project itself.  I wanted to teach new hires to drive project completion through advocating for their own work needs with precision, while respecting the specific work needs of others.

Design and Development Process

Research: I researched the most important skills in business writing according to professors, project managers and executives.  I also drew on my expertise as a writing instructor. 

Script and Storyboard: I wrote a script to include the benefits to the learner for mastering this skill in addition to the benefits for the team and the organization. We often devalue writing skills when research shows it is one of the most important skills in business and in furthering one’s career development.  I tell the learner a story of a written conversation between a proposal specialist and his manager.  The proposal specialist, eventually, focuses his communication on his own needs, the needs of external stakeholders and the needs of his manager.  The result is a refined and effective email to his manager that results in efficient task completion and movement toward meeting the project deadline. 

I conduct a knowledge check to assess the learner’s understanding.  Finally, I show them how to implement this skill in their work.

Development: I created the final project in Articulate Rise using Articulate assets.