How To Plan, Organize, & Run a Management Review Meeting

How To Plan, Organize, & Run a Management Review Meeting

Are you preparing to run a management review meeting? If so, it’s important to know what’s involved and how to make the most of it.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the basics of planning, organizing, and running a management review meeting. We’ll also share some tips along the way on how to make the most of the review, so that your next meeting is a success.

What are Management Review Meetings & Why are They Important?

Management reviews are an essential part of any company’s management process. Reviews are formal meetings with your manager(s) to discuss the processes and procedures currently in place within your management system and how to improve them.

The objective of this type of meeting is to allow upper level managers to identify problems within the system and provide feedback on how best those issues could be resolved.

These meetings also help create updated strategies for optimizing managerial processes.

Keep in mind, management meetings and reviews can be very different things. A typical management meeting would address day-to-day operations, sales progress or production issues, while a review focuses primarily on managerial system requirements.

Review meetings are particularly helpful when it comes time to reassess policies, procedures, structures, trends/patterns, or performance against key business objectives.

Before The Review

Running a review meeting correctly is an important step in your company’s development. It ensures managers are doing their jobs, helping to create a shared mindset for the direction of your business and it provides you with valuable feedback on where your company should be focusing its energy. If any problems are identified, then appropriate actions can be put into place to correct them.

But before everyone gathers for the meeting it’s important to consider a few things first…

Consider frequency

How often do you want to hold a management review meeting? The simple answer is, it all depends on the needs of your business.

Generally, it’s best to start off small with one review meeting per quarter. Yearly, is the next best option. However, if you’re in the process of making big changes to your company, then it may be best to hold management meetings more frequently in order to iron out any kinks before they become too problematic. Just be sure to avoid overloading your managers with too many meetings.

Business owners who have numerous meetings in a year may benefit from breaking down each meeting into smaller components, such as safety procedures or quality control concerns, rather than having them all lumped together for a single review.

Another scenario for multiple meetings is if you have more than one type of store within the company; then we would recommend holding separate sessions for reviewing the performance of each branch.

Consider the attendees

Who should attend a review meeting? It really depends on what you need from it. Start with your top management team and go from there based on the needs of your management process. Too many people can water down the purpose of a review meeting.

The meeting will be most effective if it is led by someone with the overall responsibility for your management system. They should identify those members of senior management who are needed at this event so that things run smoothly and without any hiccups.

Create Agenda

The following are some of the topics that should be addressed during a management review:

• Issues and problems – What issues and/or problems have arisen since the last meeting?
• Changes – Transitions within the management system that might need updating.
• Analysis of the system trends – Which parts are working well? Does anything need updating or changing? Your management team should be identifying the trends that correlate with the overall management system. Look at sales growth, product improvements etc.
• Actions – What are you going to do about problems or issues that have been identified? Who is responsible for each action? When will the actions be completed by? Set a deadline in order to have an action plan.

Running the Review

Now that you’ve got everyone together, it’s time to start…

Step 1: Open the meeting

The first step in conducting a successful meeting is to start off with an acknowledgement of why and what you’re aiming to achieve. It’s important that everyone understands their role, so there can be no confusion about the tasks at hand or any other issues related to them.

Step 2: Review the System

When reviewing your systems as a whole, you should be looking at them from different angles, so that each member of the management team can contribute their expertise in identifying strengths and weaknesses.

The weaknesses are often highlighted by those who have been directly affected by them, therefore it’s important that those with perspective have a chance to speak.

Here a few topics your meeting should cover:

• Operational function – How the system has performed day-to-day.
• Human Factors – Which people within your company are important to your management system’s success? Who needs to be involved on a daily basis? What can you do to better utilize these people and how will that benefit the business as a whole?

It’s worth noting that not all of these questions need to be answered, however it’s a good idea to look at them from the perspective of those who are affected by your management system.

• Specific Risks – Have there been any events or incidents? Who was involved and what happened? Why did the incident happen and how could it have been prevented
• Noteworthy trends – Whether they occur inside or outside of you company, trends give insight into what needs changing about processes. Inside the business trends include sales, product changes or observations about your internal processes. Outside trends include factors like legislation changes and competitors moves.

Step 3: Develop an Action Plan

Once you’ve figured out where the management system is heading, it’s time to establish some goals for what needs to be achieved…

• Set deadlines and obligations for each person on your team.
• Make a list of everything that must happen in order for your system to improve.
• Ensure that all members of your leadership team are aware of their responsibilities.
• Answer the following questions: What has to be done? What should be changed? Who is responsible for each action?
• Make sure that you review your action plan with each management review meeting. This will help to increase accountability and insight into the efficacy of what is being done in regards to achieving goals or objectives.

Step 4: Closing the Meeting

Close off by reviewing any action plans that have been put in place at this meeting and identify whether they will be a priority for everyone, then provide a timeline on when to next meet.

The review meeting doesn’t end here, review and reflection should carry on afterwards. It might be a good idea to set up some follow-up such as email threads, group chats or maybe even reaching out individually.

There’s no perfect management review meeting but you should aim for an effective one that moves your business forward and gives you some key insights on how your management systems can get even better.

Step 5: Sending out Meeting Notes

It’s absolutely essential to document the meeting. Make sure to send these documents to all attendees so they are aware of what was decided and when actions will take place.

This simple act functions as a reminder, gives everyone clarity, and gives the meeting attendees the satisfaction that their input is now documented and trackable.