How to Do Effective Management Review

How to Do Effective Management Review

ISO9001:2015 requires that management review shall be done at planned intervals to ensure the suitability, effectiveness and adequacy of the quality management system. Every organization does the management review if it wants to be ISO9001 certified, but probably not all management reviews are done effectively. So what shall the organization do to make the management review effective? This question can actually be divided into several questions as shown below. Let’s take a look one by one.

1.       Who shall attend the management review?

Management review must be attended by the top management team who has the authority to make the decisions about what shall be done next and what resources will be provided, because these decisions are the full purpose of doing management review. If the decision makers are not present in the management review, it will just end up in vain.

2.       How often and when shall the management review be conducted?

I have seen organizations have the so-called management review meeting once a year. If this is how often your organization does the management review, I dare say that the only purpose you do the management review is to have something to show to the external auditors from the certification body. In a real organization with good management, it must have regular manager meetings, normally held much often than once a year (probably once a month or even more often). In these meetings, the top management review how well the organization runs and what each department has done in the past period and also decide what shall be done next. So these meetings have already fulfilled the requirements of ISO9001 about management review, and they are management reviews! There is no need for the organization to have a separate meeting, with the designated name of “management review meeting”.

When determining the time and how often to have the manager meetings, one needs to consider following factors:

1)       When are the organization’s objectives set?

It is always needed to review the performance in the past to set up the new objectives. So before setting up a new target, it is desired to have a manager meeting. For example, if an organization sets up their objectives annually, then at the beginning of each year, a manager review must be held to review the performance in the past year, and then discuss and decide what new objectives should be set.

2)       How often is the achievement of the objectives reviewed?

After the establishment of objectives, manager meetings should be regularly held in order to review the achievement of these objectives up to this point. For example, an organization has set up some annual targets, and it has been decided that these targets shall be reviewed monthly to monitor their actual performance and to see whether additional actions or resources needed to support their achievement. In this case, manager meetings shall be held monthly.

3)       Are there any special event which needs support and decision from top management? 

In some cases, such as significant organizational changes, critical customer claims and legal issues, the awareness by the top management team is needed and resource is required for countermeasures to deal with these issues, manager meetings shall also be held to discuss the countermeasures and get the approval from the top management for resource needed.

3.       What shall be reviewed in the manager meetings?

In Clause 9.3.2 of ISO9001:2015, it is specified what shall be reviewed in the manager meetings (the input of the management review). It is a long list. To summarize, they can be divided into two categories:

A.       What are the objectives? What have been done to achieve the objectives? Have the objectives been achieved? If not, why and what corrective actions will be taken?

B.       What will be done next?

Let’s link the above three items with the input requirements for the management review in 9.3.2.

Input for Management Review as Specified in 9.3.2		Category	Note
a)        the status of actions from previous management reviews		A
b)       changes in external and internal issues that are relevant to the quality management system		A & B	Here the changes in the organization shall be reviewed, and actions taken or to be taken to response the changes shall be presented or proposed respectively. Decisions shall be made in the meeting on the proposed actions whether they are approved, as the output of the meeting. If they are approved, the needed resources shall be provided by the top management.
c)        information on the performance and effectiveness of the quality management system, including trends in	1)       customer satisfaction and feedback from relevant interested parties	A	Here the achievement of the objectives in the past can be reviewed. If the objectives are not achieved, root cause analysis shall be done, and countermeasures shall be proposed. Decisions shall be made in the meetings whether these countermeasures are approved, as the output of the meeting. If they are approved, the needed resources shall be provided by the top management.
	2)       the extent to which quality objectives have been met	A
	3)       process performance and conformity of products and services	A
	4)       nonconformities and corrective actions	A
	5)       monitoring and measurement results	A
	6)       audit results	A
	7)       the performance of external providers	A
d)       the adequacy of resources		A	In the root cause analysis for the underachieved objectives and ineffective actions, it can be discussed whether the resources provided is adequate or note.
e)       the effectiveness of actions taken to address risk		A
f)        opportunities for improvement.		B	More challenging objectives may be set if the previous objectives were achieved, meanwhile actions shall be proposed to ensure the achievement of new objectives. Decisions shall be made in the meeting whether the new objectives and corresponding actions are approved, as the output of the meeting. If the actions are approved, the needed resources shall be provided by the top management.

4.       There must be output from the management review and they should be followed up until they’re closed.

Any management review is meaningless without output. The actions to be taken in the future, either as correction for underachieving targets, or as improvement for achieved targets, or as the response to the changes, must be decided as noted in the above table. The resources shall be allocated by the top management accordingly for the approved actions. These actions shall be followed up until they are properly closed.