The Structure of Management Reviews

Here we discuss how a Management Review (MR) would be organized and who would participate.

Hierarchy

Depending on its size and organization, a company may benefit from a hierarchy of reviews. For example, a company comprising four divisions might conduct five MRs, one at each division and the fifth at company level. The advantages are that 1) division-level reviews capture input from working level employees and 2) the company review benefits from that input.

In our example, holding more than one MR might appear unnecessarily costly. Everyone in the company has “real work” to do developing products or providing services to customers. Why can’t we just have the leaders from the four divisions meet with the CEO without the preliminary, lower-level meetings? The answer is that, at whatever level, it is unrealistic to expect that a supervisor will see all the things that the people who report to him see. It is no criticism of the supervisor that he will learn from the people on his team during the MR. Rather, it is a result of the fact that good supervisors empower the people who report to them and delegate the responsibilities that those people can handle. In that sense, the MR becomes part of the communications interface which results from this division of labor. Think of team members reporting back to their supervisor after being sent on a mission.

Once he has conducted his own division-level MR (ideally, with support from a facilitator), the division head is well positioned to participate in the company-level MR. Clearly, in large companies, the hierarchy may include more than two levels – making this judgment is part of the art of designing effective MRs.

Actors

An MR is a team task. All participants must understand their roles and responsibilities.

·         The CEO sets the goals and objectives, and the scope and content of the meeting.

·         The Facilitator acts as the CEO’s agent and MR advisor. He coordinates the MR phases.

·         The COO represents the indirect (overhead) part of the company.

·         Business Development Manager (BDM) addresses customer relations and proposals.

·         Each Project/Program Manager (PM) represents a business area.

Individual roles will be discussed in detail in future posts.