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Management Review Meetings in Quarantine

The words ‘Management Review Meeting’ (MRM) may strike fear in those who haven’t attended one before, but those who attend them on a routinely basis know that they are actually critical in running and maintaining a management system. Something that can be applied in most cases, is that things aren’t usually as scary as you think they’ll be. There are parts of the ISO implementation process that sound a lot more daunting than they really are, as you may well know. The Management Review Meeting is no different, however… There is one little tweak made with this one that may place you out of your comfort zone when you hear it. Here goes: ‘Remote’ Management Review Meeting.

Hold your gasps and nervous murmurs – this is much easier and much more important than you might think. Holding MRMs at the time of the Coronavirus is of great value to your overall business and your team. This is the time in which teams need to come together more than they ever have before. This requires patience, flexibility and innovation. The reason a remote version of this meeting is essential is that without it, who knows when you will next be able to have a physical one? There’s no time like the present! We wouldn’t ever suggest you cancel your Management Review Meeting, but postpone it until you get everything in order to hold it remotely.

 

Setting up your Remote Management Review Meeting

This review meeting should be attended of course, by the management team! If it would be beneficial for members of other departments to attend, then by all means invite them too. When setting up the time and date of this meeting, discuss beforehand so that you can obtain an idea of when best suits the majority.

Just as you would for visitors coming to your workplace, make sure everybody knows how to get to and find the meeting. It sounds silly, but if it’s software that you or someone in your team is unfamiliar with then things might be a little more complicated to grasp.

Use a software for the meeting that everybody has access to, whether it be Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype… the list goes on. You can also do a quick test, where everyone tries to join a meeting for 30 seconds whilst you can confirm that the attendees know how to join for the real thing. This will not only avoid any embarrassment on either side, but it should also help to prevent delays to the meeting beginning.

 

Preparing for your Management Review Meeting

On our client area, you can download the agenda of the meeting and circulate it to all those involved. You should be aware that during the MRM, you don’t have to cover everything on the agenda, only that which is relevant. However, what should be covered depends on how often you hold these meetings, as everything on the agenda needs to be reviewed at least annually. Therefore, if you hold them quarterly, for instance, and there are some agenda items that you covered last quarter, you don’t necessarily need to discuss them again during your next one, if it’s not going to be of a benefit to you.

If you require any information for the meeting from key members of the team, request the information in good time so that it can be circulated to all involved. This would include things such as; internal audit reports, customer complaints, security breaches, etc.

 

Meeting in Progress

It can be incredibly draining having unnecessarily lengthy video calls, so, like we suggested above, only go through the points on the agenda that are relevant. It can become repetitive if you don’t, and seem like a never-ending meeting both for yourself and the attendees.

It is also essential to have somebody in the meeting taking minutes. Take some time before the meeting to assess who would be the best person to do so. It may be the organiser of the meeting, if they are not chairing the meeting or moderating any chat functions. Share out the roles so it’s easier to manage. Remember to circulate the minutes not too long after the meeting, and save them so they can be easily retrieved in the future.

Finally, the simplest of things can make a huge difference. Specifically, your microphone and camera etiquette. During this lonely time, it’s always nice seeing your colleagues’ faces on a video call when you haven’t seen them in a while. Make sure your camera is switched on and that you are sat somewhere with appropriate lighting and noise level.

That brings me to my next point, your microphone! When someone else is speaking, put your mic on ‘Mute’. The reason this is important is that mics often pick up a lot of background noise, commonly called ‘feedback’ and can even echo the sound of the person’s voice talking back at everyone, and most of us hate the sound of our own voices, so don’t put them through that!

 

Additional Resources

If you’d like some more help on how to hold a Management Review Meeting, either physically or remote, please remember that your Account Manager is here to help you. You can email them directly or call them on 0330 058 5551.

We also recommend that the person chairing the meeting has completed our online training module, so they know how to hold an effective Management Review Meeting.