We engaged Sue Tomat of Paragon (now GumLeafGreen) last year to deliver an Effective Writing Skills workshop for staff of the Portfolio Services Division of Queensland Treasury. For some time we’d been concerned about the quality of the written material being prepared, in particular the bureaucratic style and language staff consistently used in their correspondence and briefing notes. Instead of spending so much time editing documents and converting them to plain English it was decided to invest in some training. When looking for a suitable program, we were particularly keen to find a process that would encourage staff to apply their learning to their everyday work once they came out of the classroom. (Too often with training you don’t see the translation between the learning and the application.) The one-on-one coaching that came after the workshop was an essential element in the process which delivered some impressive results. The training was rated very highly by the staff and the quality of their written material has definitely improved as a result.