Managing Writers
Target Audience
This workshop benefits executives, managers, and supervisors who spend a good deal of their time reviewing and revising the writing of others.


Objectives of the Training
If mismanaged, the writing process is probably the most expensive of the “hidden” costs in business today. When analyses, policies, proposals, and reports undergo needless revision after needless revision, not only do these documents become preposterously expensive, but writers soon become dispirited and cease to give their best effort. When that happens, managers spend the majority of their time writing when they should merely be reviewing.

In a nutshell, Managing Writers helps participants get the most from their writers.  It provides a method for ensuring that they act practically in managing the entire process. 

Participants learn:

  • to give a clear assignment – and to make sure it’s clear
  • to specify the document’s occasion, purpose, scope, and audience
  • to provide a good model for the writer to follow
  • to schedule the writing and set realistic deadlines
  • to delegate to the right person
  • to be consistent in editorial preferences
  • to avoid the urge to impose a personal stamp on the writing
  • to edit only for (1) technical and legal accuracy and (2) consistency with your organization’s policy – and to leave "style" alone
  • to provide courteous, timely, and effective feedback
  • to justify, in ways the writer can understand, every editorial change


Approach
Participants receive the short (26-page) Managing Writers manual one week before the training and read it before attending. In class, we focus on (1) role-playing exercises designed to help participants clarify writing assignments and (2) reviewing and editing exercises that help participants identify text that needs to be edited. By far the primary thrust of the workshop is to help participants learn when to edit, and when – as difficult as this may be – to leave the text alone. It must be understood that this is not a writing workshop per se. Instruction is restricted to the managing of others' writing.


Tailoring the training
To customize the training, we develop exercises that realistically address issues unique to each organization. We ask that, at least two weeks before the program, you send us samples of the sorts of documents that participants assign, review, and edit – not samples of their own writing, but of documents they actively manage. Some of these documents are used verbatim in the workshop (as examples for discussion and revision). Others are modified so that they (1) exemplify distinct writing problems or (2) result in documents that require absolutely no revision. It's when participants wish to edit the latter that the point hits home.


Format
Managing Writers is a 6-hour program, and it can be formatted in two ways: either in an all-day session or in two 3-hour sessions over consecutive mornings.


Enrollment
Maximum enrollment is 15.

Lauchman Group
1324 Wild Oak
Rockville, MD 20852

Telephone 301-315-6040
Fax 301-838-9044
Mobile 202-258-3582
email richard@lauchmangroup.com



Our Clientele
AARP
ABB Environmental Services
American Bankers Association
American Chemical Society
American Institute of Architects
American Red Cross
American Security Bank
Agency for International Development
The Baldwin Group
British Aerospace
Bureau of the Public Debt
CAIS Internet
Central Intelligence Agency
Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank
Defense Communications Agency
Defense Informations Systems Agency
Defense Intelligence Agency
Defense Logistics Agency
Defense Mapping Agency
Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
Department of Energy
Department of Homeland Security
Department of the Interior
DoD Office of the Comptroller
DoD Office of Health Affairs
DoD Office of Family Policy Support and Services
Edison Electric Institute
EPA
Exxon
Fannie Mae
FBI
FCC
FDA
Federal Aviation Administration
Federal Home Loan Bank Board
Federal Trade Commission
FEMA
First American Bankshares
Freddie Mac
GHT
Goddard Space Flight Center
HPTi
IBM
ICF Kaiser Engineers
I.M. Systems Group
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Intelsat
InterAmerican Foundation
John Hanson Savings and Loan
Lockheed Martin
MAI
MCI
Military District of Washington
Mortgage Bankers Association
NASA Headquarters
National Archives and Records Administration
National Association of Child Care Resource
   & Referral Agencies
National Education Association
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal
   Diseases
National Institutes of Science and Technology
National Ocean Service
Naval Research Laboratory
Nextel Communications
NOAA
Northeast-Midwest Institute
Office of Technology Assessment
Perot Systems
Perpetual Savings Bank
Potomac Electric Power Company
Project Performance Corporation
Riggs National Bank
Ryland Homes
Sallie Mae
Small Business Administration
Smithsonian Institution
State Department
Technology Planning and Management Corporation
United Savings Bank
U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Office of Personnel Management
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
WSSC