9.3.

1 General
The management review process requires Top management to periodically
review the QMS to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy, effectiveness
and alignment with the strategic direction of
the organization.
Why undertake management reviews?
1 Determine and evaluate QMS performance
2 Determine the need for change and improvement
3 Determine the suitability of the policies and the objectives
The purpose and final outcome of the management review should be
continual improvement of the QMS. As your organization’s QMS increases in
its effectiveness and efficiency, your performance will likewise increase.

When should we schedule a management review?

The frequency or intervals of reviews must be defined in the QMS.
Aim to do a management review at least once a year or more often if
appropriate. Little and often is best; there is nothing to say that you have to go
through the full agenda each time, nor is there any need to duplicate effort if
you cover certain aspects as part of other management meetings.

What should be reviewed?

Internal and external issues should be discussed - and their potential effect on
the strategic direction of the organization.
Internal
1 Minutes from previous management reviews
2 The policies, objectives and targets
3 Results of QMS and process audits
4 The extent to which objectives and the numeric targets were met
5 Assessment of risk management actions
External
1 New or proposed legislation or regulations
2 External providers and suppliers performance
3 Changing expectations/requirements of relevant interested parties
4 New or modified activities, products, or services
5 Advances in technology and science
6 Changing market preferences of buyers
9.3.2 Management Review Inputs (Agenda)
The management review process must ensure that the necessary information
is collected ahead of time to allow management to effectively perform the
review.
The management review process should focus on the following inputs:
1 Risks and opportunities (Clause 6.1)
2 Possible changes that might affect the system (Clause 6.3)
3 External provider and suppliers performance (Clause 8.4)
4 Customer satisfaction and perception (Clause 9.1.2)
5 Audit results (Clause 9.2)
6 Non-conformity and corrective actions (Clause 10.2)
9.3.3 Management Review Outputs (Minutes/Actions)
All management reviews must be documented. Observations, conclusions,
and recommendations for further necessary action from the review must be
recorded. If any corrective action must be taken, Top management should
follow up to ensure that the action was effectively implemented.
Auditors should expect to evidence the same outputs from management
reviews as ISO 9001:2008 Clause 5.6.3, however, they should note that the
results of management reviews can now be held in any format that the
organization chooses.
Typical outputs might include:
1 Process improvement actions
2 QMS improvement actions
3 Product improvement actions
4 Resource provision actions
5 Revised business plans and budgets
6 Changes to quality objectives and policies
7 Management meeting minutes
Management review meeting minutes should be retained as documented
information.
How's best to document management reviews?
It is not a mandatory requirement to document the management review
procedure for acheiving ISO 9001:2015 certification, however, if the
management review process is vital in acheiving product quality; you may find
a documented procedure useful.
Develop and implement a management review procedure that defines:
▪ Management review responsibilities
▪ Management review scheduling
▪ Management review inputs
▪ Management review outputs
Measuring management review effectiveness
The management review process can be measured by assessing the
effectiveness of key decisions/outputs; e.g. budgetary changes, forecasts,
revised resources plans or changes to the quality policy or objectives.
Management review outputs are intended to improve your business; auditors
will look for evidence that this is being achieved.

THE VALUE AND

IMPORTANCE OF
EFFECTIVE
MANAGEMENT
REVIEW
Quality System Lead Assessor Nigel Turner discusses the
methods by which organizations can fully benefit from their
management review process.

Whichever management system standard or combination of

standards your organization is involved with, you should be familiar
with the term Management Review. The review process is one of
the cornerstone requirements of management system standards
and is an element that your Assessor will always be interested in
reviewing and discussing with you – it is a mandatory element of
all assessment and surveillance visits where the core quality
function is being evaluated.

So how can we get full value from this very useful management
system function?
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MANAGEMENT
REVIEW?
The idea behind the review process is to take a regular and
systematic step back from the day to day running of an
organization and review the performance of the management
systems, and their continuing suitability, adequacy and
effectiveness.

In the 2015 updates to the standards there is greater emphasis on

more broad-based thinking to ensure that systems are fully aligned
to the strategic direction of the organization – something that was
always implied in previous versions but never actually stated –
until now.

The importance of ensuring that systems remain focussed on the

direction of the business, are improved to reflect changes that
have occurred in the company’s context and to take advantage of
opportunities whilst fully addressing risky areas of the business,
These must be continuously reviewed under the management
review process.
The other key areas are to review:
4 Actual results relating to the performance of the
business and its systems
5 Data on the performance in meeting the quality
objectives and key performance measures for the
organization
6 Learning from what has gone wrong
7 Looking at trends in problems encountered with a view
to improving practices to eliminate their causes.
The management review requirement provides the management
team with an opportunity to look in on its business from a different
angle and to critically evaluate the period, improve the approach
and plan for the next one.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND AND WHY?
Standards require that the system is reviewed by top management
– that is the leader(s) of the organization. For example in ISO
9001, systems must be evaluated to ensure alignment with the
organization’s strategy. It would not be feasible to conduct an
effective review, if those responsible for the strategy were not
present.

As a business leader you will want to demonstrate to your

Assessor that you are committed to the management system that
you commissioned and confidence in this commitment will be
undermined if the review process takes place without you,
moreover you should be genuinely engaged with understanding
how systems have performed in your organization and interested
to find areas to improve performance.
You will spend much time reviewing your financial performance
and results, and by taking the same approach to understanding
that system performance directly affects this further down the line,
the requirement is aimed firmly at getting you to understand that
effective systems result in good financial performance.

Examples of this include the elimination of waste, optimising

operational efficiency, reducing complaints and improving
customer satisfaction levels – from all of these results,
improvements can be generated which will impact positively on the
overall results of your financial performance.
HOW OFTEN AND WHEN SHOULD THE REVIEW
PROCESS HAPPEN?
There are no firm requirements for the frequency of review but it is
generally accepted that the process is cyclical around the
organization’s financial year. It makes most sense to review
systems and results in line with the business cycle’s financial year
as the performance will potentially impact on budgets available for
investment for improvement which may be desirable as one of the
outputs of the review.

If the timing of the main management review process is not aligned

to the financial year – ask yourself why? The idea of planning as
an output of the review to set goals and objectives for the
forthcoming period should be one which the management team
embraces.

Guidance on management review issued as part of the system

standards makes it clear that the review process does not have to
be a separate activity from processes already in place in an
organization, for example the review agenda can be built into
existing systems of board meetings, or management briefing
sessions and the agenda does not have to be covered all at once.
It will be important to have an agenda, or matrix covering all the
required elements to ensure that they are all considered over the
period but there does not have to be a separate review meeting.
That said many registered organizations do hold specific
management review meetings to focus in on the quality agenda.

It is not best practice to hold just one review in the period –

quarterly or six-monthly interim reviews will provide opportunities
to review progress against objectives and adjust strategy and
resources, if necessary, to ensure that the organization meets its
goals at the end of the period.
Imagine sitting in an annual review to find that the management of
objective performance has not been effective and opportunities
and targets have been missed due to a lack of focus. That said,
too many reviews will result in the team discussing day to day
issues and individual problems and not taking that step back to
examine trends mentioned earlier.
PREPARING AND PLANNING FOR THE REVIEW
So you have the review agenda in place and the meeting
scheduled – what are you going to discuss?

The key area here is actual results that demonstrate the

performance of systems. The only way to review results is to
ensure that data is available for presentation in the meeting and
therefore this will need to be collected and collated into a form that
can be presented, discussed and evaluated by the meeting.

For example, for quality:

6 How has the core process performed?
7 Have products/services/processes been delivered as
planned or where have the failures occurred?
8 What is the costs of failure, complaints, credit notes,
negative feedback from customers, audit findings etc.?
9 How have suppliers supported the organization in the
period and where have there been problems?
10 What data will show to the level the objectives
and strategy within the organization that have been
fulfilled? This will be a combination of process and financial
data and should be formatted to demonstrate trends.
The other key area to review and evaluate is the context – a new
term in the 2015 standard revisions. What is new, what has
changed? The actions of customers, competitors, changes in the
legal framework in which the organization operates, the availability
of new technology, staff resources and knowledge, the state of the
economy, actions of other stakeholders and any other factors can
all affect the performance of the organization and its systems and
provide new opportunities and risks to plan for.

You should make time to ensure that the context is fully

understood and that this can be reflected in an informed
discussion. Please see our full article on Context for more
information.
The purpose of the meeting is to take a factual approach to
discussions and decision making and without seeking those facts
in preparation the meeting will not be fully effective. Your Assessor
will be looking to gain confidence that you understand your
organization and are designing your management system to fully
suit its needs as it evolves and the depth of analysis used as
management review input greatly contributes to this – do not make
purely speculative or anecdotal comments in support of
performance – use the actual data to provide this confidence.
CONDUCTING THE REVIEW AND PREPARING ITS
OUTPUTS
The discussions and analysis that take place in the review must be
documented. It is usual for outputs of the review to comprise of
minutes, an action plan, objectives and targets for their
achievement. Any minutes should reflect that the team has
reviewed and discussed the results and input information and any
actions arising from the discussion – is the team happy with the
results and what improvements can be made for the next period.

Be critical – is the process really fully effective if we are presiding

over failure trends – what can we do to eliminate the causes of the
problems we see?
Have objectives been achieved and if not why not? What actions
can be planned to improve performance and remove to obstacles
that have hindered progress in the period?

Changes and actions should be documented into some form of

action plan, either incorporated in to the review minutes or as a
separate plan. The latest version of the standards place much
more emphasis on planning to achieve objectives. To ensure that
allocated actions are clearly understood, any plan must now:
7 Determine what needs to be done
8 What resources will be required
9 Who will be responsible
10 What timelines are involved
11 How the results will be evaluated
AFTER THE REVIEW… MONITORING AND
FOLLOW-UP
Circulate the output meeting minutes and action plan as required
and create a follow-up plan. This could be via the next scheduled
meeting through the audit process or maybe via another, more
informal means with the individuals involved.

Ensure that all of the team are aware of your focus in ensuring that
actions are undertaken that contribute towards achievement of the
objectives and encourage communication regarding any setbacks
or problems and ensure that individuals have the required level of
support, time and resource to enable actions to be properly
implemented.

By adopting this culture and approach and remaining systematic in

the conduct of management review, organizations will not only
easily maintain their management system approvals with NQA but
will reap the benefits of a real improvement culture which uses the
systems of the business to contribute towards the delivery of real
results.

Author: Nigel Turner, NQA