Writing great and lasting training manuals takes a lot more than just knowing how to do something.  It’s important that information is organised in a way that facilitates learning and is presented in a manner that engages the audience.

There are a few fundamental steps to consider when writing a training manual:

1. Understand the learning objective (does your audience need to come away with a good overview or an in-depth knowledge?).
2. Have a thorough understanding of the training audience (child or adult, skill levels, culture).
3. Write for your audience (the words used will be vastly different if you are writing training for your sales team or your technical specialists).
4. Break your content into manageable pieces (this will make it a lot easier for your audience to retain information).
5. Avoid jargon (I recommend you always use words that you would be happy for your customers to hear).
6. Be consistent (don’t start out calling something laptop and later call it a notebook).

ABOVE ALL don’t let your subject matter expert write your training guide or manual.  They are passionate about their subject and know more about it than anyone else.  While it’s often tempting to let your experts write your training they won’t follow a consistent methodology and will find it very difficult to tailor modules for your specific audience.

Word Dynamics does the difficult work so your reader doesn’t have to – to find out more about how we can write or help you with your training material content, contact Pauline on 0400 514579 / pauline@worddynamics.com.au or simply contact me using the form below.  I'm a skilled UPK developer, so if your business uses Oracle User Productivity Kit to assist with self paced training, I'm here to help.

Word Dynamics – Training material development and copywriting services for Brisbane, Gold Coast, Queensland, Sydney, NSW, Melbourne, Victoria, Adelaide, SA, Hobart, Tasmania, Canberra, ACT, Perth, WA, Darwin and NT.