AI training for the work your team does every day

I train staff to use AI for report writing, engagement planning, feedback analysis and editing. Your staff get a shared, practical way of working with AI while keeping their own thinking central to the process.

Let's talk about training for your team

When to bring me in

Team leaders usually get in touch with me in these situations:

  • half the team uses AI every day and the other half don’t touch it
  • a councillor, board member or funder asks what your AI policy is, and there isn’t one to show them
  • you’re paying for Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude subscriptions and can’t point to a single improvement
  • a draft document nearly went out on an agenda before you realised the team member had over-relied on AI to generate it so wouldn’t be able to stand behind the findings in a committee meeting
  • your team sat through a generic AI webinar that left them no clearer on how to use it in the work they do.

If you recognise any of these scenarios, you’re not alone! It’s difficult for organisations to provide consistent leadership and training when AI is changing so rapidly. This means many staff are experimenting and working out how to use AI on their own, without much guidance. Others are too busy to make the time to figure out how to apply it, so risk falling behind their peers.

Three ways I can help

1. Introduction to AI

Learn the 3Rs framework for writing prompts that get useful results, plus six months’ access to my AI Prompt Writer tool. This is a good starting point for groups with different levels of familiarity with AI. [More details]

2. Workshops for strategic planning tasks

Each workshop focuses on one part of the strategic planning process, so your team can use what they learn straight away.

  • Use AI to help write reports – the full report writing process, starting with clarity on the issue to be addressed and what the readers need to know to make an informed decision. [More details]

  • Use AI to plan engagement with stakeholders – this workshop builds on your team’s communication strengths, with AI helping to brainstorm and structure an engagement plan. [More details]

  • Use AI to speed up feedback analysis – Your team will come away with frameworks and prompts for sorting and making sense of community feedback, with human checks between every AI step. [More details]
 
  • Use AI to improve writing without losing your voice – Learn how AI can support the different steps of the editing process without making the author’s writing bland, and making it easy to consistently apply your organisation’s style. [More details]

3. Customised training built around your team

If you want to achieve more consistent use of AI use across your whole team, I develop a programme around how your staff work now. It starts with a snapshot: a short survey and interviews with key staff to see how AI is being used, where it could help, and where the risks are. From there I develop and deliver workshops shaped by what we find.

The programme can also include a new or updated AI policy, and the foundations of a shared prompt library your team tests during the workshops. That gives you something concrete to work with, and build on, after the training has finished.

How the workshops run

The Introduction to AI workshop runs for 1.5 hours and includes a complimentary follow up session a month later to maintain momentum.

The strategic planning workshops run for three hours each. We use fictional scenarios and sample content which is relevant to your organisation and their role.

All workshops are limited to up to 10 people to ensure everyone has an opportunity to share their ideas. The workshops involve a series of practical exercises using the detailed prompts which are provided in a workbook for ongoing use.

The prompts work in Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude, so your team can use the tools you already pay for, and that are approved for use in your organisation.

The rule behind every workshop

There’s one rule I stick to in my own planning work, and I teach it in every session: after every AI step, take a manual step.

AI is a big help with the slow, repetitive parts of strategic planning work, such as sorting feedback, structuring a draft or finding a reference in a long document. Your staff stay responsible for understanding the issues and context, listening to people, making recommendations and standing behind what they write.

That’s how your documents keep your organisation’s voice and local knowledge. It also means you can answer with confidence when someone asks how AI was used in the development of a document.

What participants say

“Debra provided a series of AI prompt writing workshops for our team of 28, all of whom work in technical fields involving complexity and lengthy processes. The feedback from the team was that the sessions were very relevant and useful for their work … Debra's approach was clear, engaging, and tailored to our needs.”
Jacqui Irwin
Team Lead, Management Planning, Department of Conservation
“Debra's workshop was a fantastic introduction to understand and explore the ways that we can use AI to support our work. While I had already been using AI from time to time, Debra's structured approach for writing prompts has really allowed me to understand how to interrogate AI faster and with more accuracy as well as broadening my horizons about what AI can be useful for.”
Shireen Munday
Munday Consulting
Debra has twice presented her AI for the modern-day editor workshop to IPEd editors, with both sessions selling out. She showed us how we can use generative AI for different aspects of our work and encouraged us to make up our own minds about how we might want to use (or not use) it. Her demonstration of how we can write our own AI policy based on a risk assessment framework was particularly valuable.
Her workbook is fantastic and packed with clear instructions and examples from different genres for editors to experiment with. Debra provides ample time for people to work through examples in the workshop itself and was on hand to answer questions and troubleshoot. I'm keen to have Debra back again and recommend her training to people who want to learn more about using generative AI for writing tasks in their workplace.
Deborah Shaw
Non-fiction and academic editor
Wow! I thought I was too tired to do justice to Debra's training in how to use AI prompts to support my work – but she had me fizzing within a few minutes! Debra's approach helps you break down what you want to achieve into structured steps for using AI in a way that is careful, ethical and trackable. Such a brilliant way to instruct an AI tool to frame and receive what you really need. It's a pleasure to be on the receiving end of such expertise – and she makes it fun, as well! I highly recommend Debra’s training.
Clare Feeney
Strategic Environmental Trainer
"Exceptional — within 40 minutes, a complicated report I've been labouring over is clear and concise, in a sensible order ... These tools are at the cutting edge of report writing, could be the mainstay of best practice and make life a lot easier for Council Officers and the Governance team. I found Debra and her tools invaluable to be able to upskill independently and to demonstrate Continuing Professional Development, outside of organisational training."
Janelle Bilcliffe
“Great, thanks! Awesome to have someone who understands our work.” “Easy to understand. Much easier than I thought it would be.”
“Good to have people from across Council from an information sharing perspective, lots of different ideas on how to use AI.”
“Pitched at a good level for people who know nothing about AI. Not overwhelming.”
“Thank you for this training. This is going to help make certain tasks a whole lot easier going forward.”
Marlborough District Council staff

Common questions

Do participants need any AI experience?

No. Every workshop welcomes complete beginners, and people who already use AI come away with a more structured approach and new ideas for using it.

Some of my team are sceptical about AI. Will this work for them?

Mixed views are the normal starting point. Trying out the prompts is the best way to understand the different ways AI can be useful in your role, and how you want to use it.

Which AI tools do we need?

The prompts work in Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT or Claude. You don’t need to buy anything new to participate in these workshops.

What about confidential information?

I share my risk management framework in every workshop I run, which teams can adapt for their organisation. I can also help you develop an AI Policy to share with staff, if that’s useful. (This was the most popular exercise in a workshop for the Institute of Professional Editors.)

Can you come to us?

Yes. In-person workshops are available anywhere in New Zealand, with travel costs confirmed in advance.

Next step

If your team needs help to integrate AI into strategic planning processes, or is using AI in 10 different ways, please get in touch. We can talk through which workshop would be most useful to them, or whether customised training is a better option.

Please get in touch at debra.bradley@writingforcouncils.co.nz or phone 021 215 4698.

If no one on your team has time to take on a strategic planning project, I can run it for you.

Let's talk about training for your team