Strategies for effective briefing notes
Brevity and precision are the primary qualities that make a briefing note effective.
Here are a few strategies that will help you write effective briefing notes.
- Keep it short. An effective briefing note can be easily "scanned" for its main points – it may not be read in detail until the meeting begins.
- Keep it simple. Your brief will be one of many documents read that week.
- Stick to the issue. Don't include any extraneous information.
- Analyse your readers. A briefing note always has multiple audiences; you write for one individual (the primary reader), and they deliver the message to others (the secondary reader).
- Use plain English. Your readers (e.g. senior officers) typically are not discussing the technical details. Be particularly careful to be clear in references to other policies, procedures and forms.
- Be specific. Avoid buzzwords and non-specific words like "quite," "really," and "basically".
- Proofread carefully.
