Guideline on Why and How to review Management Systems

A management review is a systematic assessment to ‘measure the effectiveness of the organisations’ management system. ISO standards require management reviews because they ensure that management systems remain focused on the direction of the business and continual improvement.

An inefficient management system leads to a lack of engagement, uncertainty, and lack of clarity throughout the business. The idea behind the review process is to take a regular and systematic step back from the day to day running of a business to review the performance of the management system by asking “Are the current processes still suitable, adequate, and effective?”

Routinely reviewing and improving processes within an organisation is a critical element of continual improvement. A management review allows an organisation to make informed decisions using the Key Performance Indicators driven by their management system objectives, identify opportunities for improvement and review and manage business risks.

It is important to note that there is a difference between Management Meetings and Management Reviews. The former may address the day-to-day working practices, sales, production, resources and staffing matters, but the Management Review focuses solely on the requirements of the Management System, as described within your Manual or documented information.

In this article, we discuss management reviews and their links to an improvement focused business, the steps organisations can take to implement them, and the solutions management reviews provides.

Management review is a critical and required part of running an ISO certified Management System. They allow you to determine and evaluate management system performance, the need for change and improvement, and the suitability of business policies and objectives.
Management review allows an organisation to:

• Review actual results relating to the performance of the business and its systems
• Look at trends in problems encountered with a view of improving practices to eliminate their causes
• Review data on the performance in meeting the quality objectives and key performance measures for the organisation
• Learn from what has gone wrong
• Monitor subsequent corrective and preventive actions

When you take the time to look at how your management systems are working and not working, you can identify areas that are failing and plan to improve/fix them.

Responsible Operational Managers should be present and participate in management reviews however, it’s also important to review if additional personal are required to ensure the correct people are in attendance to discuss any potential issues that arise.

Management reviews should be conducted at least once a year, although for larger organisations it is recommended that reviews should be conducted more frequently. Regular management reviews are a requirement of ISO standards and should be done routinely.

It is up to the organisation to set the frequency of the management review. However, ISO standards state that the frequency of reviews must be defined in the management system processes or related documented procedure for ISO certification.

To ensure engagement from participants, if you operate various management systems these should be combined, where possible. This removes the need for potential duplication in discussion and therefore has less impact on your resource.

An agenda should be pre-communicated with team members, and this agenda should be fixed for each review meeting, to ensure consistency of discussions. Whilst Management System standards have a pre-requisite set of requirements (depending on the standard), the agenda may include items such as:

Is the current management system achieving the expected results – competitive edge, efficiencies, customer satisfaction, etc.?

• Is it current/relevant and meeting the organisation’s requirements?
• Does it demonstrate continual improvement?
• Is the organisation compliant with relevant legislation?
• Are these the results we want? Are we working on the right things? What is the quality of our program?
• What resources are needed to address any issues, shortfalls, or improvements?
• What process improvements can be put in place?
• Have all corrective actions/areas for improvement discussed at the previous management review been resolved.

As the process involves discussions and making decisions about changes to and the direction of company policies and the Management System, examining appropriate evidence is vital to this process. The evidence that should be brought to a Management Review includes:

• Minutes of previous Management Review meeting
• Management System documentation
• Internal and External Audit Reports
• Relevant records (including customer feedback, corrective action log etc.)
• Register of Legal and other requirements
• Complaints analysis
• Corrective and preventive actions and close-out of Management Information Reports
• Policies review

When taking minutes use the meeting agenda to document notes next to each related topic. This will help with the write-up later as brief notes have more context when written under a specific topic. During the meeting, any anticipated challenges, performance gaps, or inefficiencies should be discussed in order that management can proactively address these issues. Recommended corrective actions should be agreed, documented, and assigned. Make sure to also record the date and time of the meeting and who was in attendance.