Briefing notes: General guidelines
- Keep your note as short as possible. Briefing notes may be read in a car or plane on the way to the meeting where they will be used. Each note must be suitable for a glance, not extensive study.
- Before you write, check the requirements of your reader for length and format.
- Do not exceed the stated length; if you do, someone else less knowledgeable than you about your programme may end up editing your content to fit.
Do not reduce the point size of the font or widen the margins so that you can fit more onto that one page. Dense text will make it even more difficult for your reader to absorb your brief.
- Meet deadlines. If your brief is being written for one in a day-long series of meetings, it must be read the day before. If it’s late arriving, it cannot be used and the information you think is important will not become part of the conversation.
- Keep it simple. Your brief will be one of many read that week.
- Stick to the issue. Don’t include any extraneous information.
- Use plain English. Senior executives typically are not discussing the technical aspects of issues. Avoid buzzwords and non-specific words like “quite,” “really,” and “basically”.
- Proofread carefully.
- Get someone else to read the draft and encourage them to be ruthless in their criticism. If they can’t understand it, or find it long-winded, fix it.
