Management reviews that decide something
The review every ISO management system requires, prepared and run so it produces decisions and actions instead of a signed agenda.
- Required by
- Clause 9.3 of the ISO management system standards
- Frequency
- At planned intervals you set
- Before certification
- At least one review held and minuted
- Input pack
- Trends against targets, not annual totals
- Output
- Decisions with owners and dates
A management review is the review by top management that every ISO management system requires. It covers set inputs such as audit results, performance, customer feedback and risks, and produces decisions on improvement, changes to the system and resources. We prepare the inputs, run or facilitate the meeting, and write minutes that record what was decided.
- 01 Enquiry
- 02 Gap analysis
- 03 Plan
- 04 Build
- 05 Embed
- 06 Internal audit
- 07 Close out
- 08 Management review
- 09 Handover
Management reviews that decide something sits at step 8 of the readiness cycle. You receive management review minutes.
The review held for the auditor
The review is held once a year to satisfy the auditor. The inputs are read aloud, nothing is decided, and the minutes list the agenda.
An auditor reading those minutes can see that the meeting happened and cannot see that it changed anything. The standard asks for outputs: decisions on improvement, on changes to the system and on resources. Minutes without them record attendance.
The cause is usually the inputs. A pack of annual totals gives top management nothing to decide about. A complaint count means little without last year's count, the target and the direction, and a manager who cannot see a trend will not commit money to it.
The other cause is the room. If the people who can approve a budget or move a person are not in it, the review can only recommend, and a recommendation is not an output.
What goes into the pack
The standard lists the inputs. Each discipline adds its own, so an integrated system covers several lists in one meeting.
| Input | What we prepare | Shown as |
|---|---|---|
| Actions from the last review | Each action with its owner, due date and current status, including the ones that slipped. | Open, closed, overdue |
| Changes in issues | Internal and external changes since the last review: customers, regulation, sites, people and suppliers. | What moved |
| Objectives and performance | Each objective against its target, with the months behind it. | Trend against target |
| Nonconformities and corrective actions | Grouped by process and cause, with a check on whether closed actions stayed closed. | Trend, repeats marked |
| Audit results | Internal, customer and certification audit findings, grouped by clause and by process. | Where findings cluster |
| Customers and interested parties | Complaints, satisfaction data and relevant communication from the parties your system names. | Trend and themes |
| Risks and resources | Whether actions on risks and opportunities worked, and where people, equipment or budget are short. | Decisions needed |
Four documents come out of it
The input pack
A short pack sent before the meeting, built on trends rather than totals, so the meeting is spent deciding and not reading.
The decision agenda
The meeting laid out around the decisions the pack points to, each with its evidence beside it.
The minutes
Written to the standard's outputs: what was decided on improvement, on changes to the system and on resources, and by whom.
The action list
Every decision as an action with an owner and a date, carried into the next review as its first input.
From data to minutes
- 01
Collect
We pull the inputs from your registers, logs and audit reports, and ask for whatever is missing.
- 02
Build the pack
Totals become trends against targets. Each section ends with the decision it points to.
- 03
Send it ahead
Top management reads the pack before the meeting, so the room is not spent reading it aloud.
- 04
Run the meeting
We chair or facilitate, as you prefer, and hold the discussion to the decisions on the agenda.
- 05
Minute and follow up
Minutes written to the standard's outputs, the action list issued, and the actions reviewed at the next meeting.
Three reviews without a single action
A company's last three management reviews produced no actions. The minutes listed the agenda items and the signatures.
We read the three sets of minutes and the packs behind them. Each pack was a year of totals: complaints, nonconformities, audit findings and training hours. None of it showed a direction, so nobody in the room had anything to decide about.
We rebuild the input as a two-page pack. Each objective is shown against its target by month. Nonconformities are grouped by process, with the repeats marked. The pack ends with the three decisions the data points to.
The meeting is run around those three decisions. The minutes record what was decided, and each decision leaves the room as an action with an owner and a date. The next review opens with the status of those actions.
About the meeting itself
How often do we have to hold one?
At planned intervals, which you set. Many organisations hold one a year and some fold it into quarterly management meetings. Before a certification audit, at least one full review must have been held and minuted.
Can it be part of our normal management meeting?
Yes, if the required inputs are covered and the outputs are minuted. Some organisations cover the inputs across several meetings in the year. What matters is that the record shows every input was considered and every output was decided.
Who has to attend?
Top management: the people who can approve resources and change how the organisation runs. A quality manager presenting to nobody senior is giving a report, not holding a review.
Do you chair it?
If you want us to. Often the general manager chairs and we facilitate. Either way the decisions are yours, and the minutes record them as yours.
What does an auditor look for in the minutes?
Evidence that each input was considered and that the review produced outputs: decisions on improvement, on changes to the system and on resources. The actions from the previous review, and whether they were done, are usually checked too.
Around the review
Internal audit
The audit results that feed the review.
Read moreServiceClosing audit findings
The findings a review should ask about, closed at the cause.
Read moreServiceSurveillance support
Review preparation as part of a year on a fixed schedule.
Read moreTransitionISO 9001:2026 transition
A new edition of the standard is exactly the kind of change a review has to consider.
Read morePart of one system
Every division keeps records to the same standard, so the second one you need works the way the first one did.
Make the next review decide something
Send us the minutes of your last review. We will show you which outputs are missing and what the next pack needs to put in front of top management.