Programme overview
Introduction:
Administrative coordination and follow-up break down quietly: meeting decisions are recorded but never actioned, letters to partner bodies go unanswered, deadlines slip between units and managers learn of delays only when a problem escalates. This Core Concept course gives coordinators, liaison officers and office staff a practical method to map who depends on whom, log every action with one owner and one due date, chase replies with firm escalation rules and report status to management in a single page. Participants leave with a Department Follow-Up System and Management Status Report.
Course Objectives:
- Define the coordination role of a unit and map the internal and external parties it depends on using a power-interest grid
- Set up a follow-up register and action log in which every item has one owner, one due date and a status
- Capture decisions from meetings and incoming correspondence and track each one to resolution
- Apply deadline rules, reminder cycles and an escalation ladder to overdue items and unanswered requests
- Communicate follow-up requests, reminders and status updates to colleagues and external bodies in clear, courteous language
- Produce a Department Follow-Up System and a Management Status Report with a red-amber-green summary
Target Audience:
- Staff who coordinate tasks and information between several units of the same organisation
- Officers who act as the point of contact with partner organisations, suppliers or government bodies
- Secretarial and office staff who record meeting decisions and chase their completion
- Office supervisors who report the status of pending work and correspondence to their managers
- Team members newly assigned to a coordination, follow-up or liaison desk
Course Outline:
Day 1: The Coordination Role and the Follow-Up Landscape
- Coordination Versus Follow-Up: Definitions, Purpose and Typical Failure Points
- Horizontal, Vertical and External Coordination Channels in Organisations
- Liaison Officer Role Profile: Point of Contact, Information Broker and Relationship Keeper
- Current Follow-Up Health Check: Open Items, Overdue Items and Lost Requests
- Coordination Workload Snapshot: Sources, Volumes and Response Times of Pending Items
Day 2: Mapping Parties and Designing the Follow-Up Framework
- Power-Interest Grid for Internal Units and External Entities
- Salience Model: Ranking Parties by Legitimacy, Power and Urgency
- Interface Map: Handover Points, Information Flows and Dependency Lines Between Units
- Follow-Up Register Design: Fields, Reference Numbers, Owners and Status Codes
- Action Item Life Cycle: Open, In Progress, Resolved and Cancelled
Day 3: Running Daily Follow-Up Work
- Meeting Decision Tracker: Converting Minutes into Owned, Dated Actions
- Correspondence Tracking Log: Incoming, Outgoing and Awaiting-Reply Items
- Reminder Cycle Planning: Pre-Due, Due-Day and Overdue Notices
- Follow-Up Request Wording: Polite, Specific and Time-Bound Messages
- Shared Spreadsheet and Task Board Set-Up for Team Follow-Up
Day 4: Escalation, External Liaison and Reporting to Management
- Escalation Ladder: Trigger Points, Levels and Required Evidence
- Liaison Visits and Calls with External Bodies: Preparation Checklist and Contact Record
- Handling Non-Responsive Parties and Conflicting Priorities Between Units
- Red-Amber-Green Status Rules and Ageing Analysis of Open Items
- One-Page Follow-Up Dashboard: Counts, Overdue Trends and Items Needing a Decision
Day 5: Case Department Work and the Follow-Up System
- Case Department Backlog Review: Sorting Decisions, Letters and Requests
- Case Exercise: Rebuilding a Lapsed Action Log After a Leadership Meeting
- Department Follow-Up System Drafting: Register, Rules and Reminder Calendar
- Management Status Report Drafting with Escalation Recommendations
- Peer Review and Presentation of Follow-Up Systems to a Mock Management Panel
Skills You Will Gain:
- Stakeholder Mapping
- Interface Analysis
- Action Log Management
- Decision Tracking
- Correspondence Control
- Escalation Handling
- Status Reporting
- Liaison Communication
Why Attend This Course:
- Return to work with a Department Follow-Up System ready to run from the first week
- Stop decisions and letters from going missing between meetings, units and outside bodies
- Know when and how to escalate an overdue item without damaging working relationships
- Compare coordination and liaison practice with peers from public bodies, industry, healthcare and services
Conclusion:
Good follow-up is a routine, not a reminder sent when something is already late. The course moves from defining the coordination and liaison role and checking the current state of pending work, through mapping parties, interfaces and the action item life cycle, to the daily routines of decision tracking, correspondence logs and reminders, and then to escalation, external liaison and status reporting. The final day applies these tools to a case department and produces a Department Follow-Up System and Management Status Report.