Danish Nurses' Organisation: A shared language for decision papers

The challenge

The Danish Nurses' Organisation wanted to professionalise and lift the whole secretariat – especially the ability to write strong political and administrative decision papers. Not as a one-off course, but as a joint effort where management and staff work to the same method.

Our approach

• Templates: Advice on new templates for political and administrative briefs, memos and recommendations.
• Management first: A workshop for the director and senior managers and two seminars for all managers. Management agreed on its requirements for a good decision paper – and how to commission one.
• Courses for staff: Three two-day courses on political papers and two on administrative papers, built on the organisation's templates and management's quality criteria: reader analysis, argumentation, structure, language and feedback on writing.
• Communicating expertise: Courses and a workshop for staff who communicate verbally and in short written formats such as email and intranet.
• Ongoing sparring on implementation.

The result

The whole organisation now uses the same methods and tools – a shared language for writing processes, decision papers and feedback. Better requests from management save time and lift the quality of the papers.