MeetingBooster is an enterprise meeting management solution that helps organizations maintain the seven principals of ISO compliancy. This document is intended to provide a brief overview of how MeetingBooster assists with the compliancy of the International Standards Organization (ISO). MeetingBooster helps compliance officers by offering a solution that streamlines the meeting process, control documents within that process and manage tasks. It’s no secret that all compliance programs require meetings and trainings to be recorded. All programs require extensive document control systems including making sure all relevant parties have access to information, controlling the versions of the documents, maintaining security of the documents, and storing records.  These are crucial steps to maintain to ensure an audit will progress smoothly and eliminate the number of CARs. MeetingBooster allows compliance personnel to create agendas, run meetings more effectively, include all relevant evidence and archive all tasks and minutes. This will greatly reduce the amount of time recreating data and searching for relevant paperwork within an audit. These benefits compound when you are a member of management, responsible for several programs in multiple departments. Performance process reviews are easily extracted and reviewed utilizing the meeting analytics within MeetingBooster. These features coupled with an advanced permission and task system make MeetingBooster an end-to-end solution for any organization.

International Standards Organization (ISO) Overview

ISO has seven principles which work together to create standard business practices

• Principle 1 – Customer focus
• Principle 2 – Leadership
• Principle 3 – Engagement of people
• Principle 4 – Process approach
• Principle 5 – Improvement
• Principle 6 – Evidence-based decision making
• Principle 7 – Relationship management

The seven principles are applied throughout the 8 sections:

Section 1: Scope Section 2: Normative Reference Section 3: Terms and Definitions Section 4: Quality Management System Section 5: Management Responsibility Section 6: Resource Management Section 7: Product Realization Section 8: Measurement, Analysis and Improvement

Where MeetingBooster is applicable

Here is a breakdown of the specific ISO 9001 sections where MeetingBooster helps compliance managers:

Section 4: Quality Management Systems

Section 4.1, D – Ensure the availability of resources and information necessary to support the operation and monitoring of these processes. Section 4.2.1, D – Quality Management system documentation shall include: documents, including records, determined by the organization to be necessary to ensure the effective planning, operation and control of its processes Section 4.2.3 Control of Documents – Documents required by the quality management system shall be controlled. Records are a special type of document and shall be controlled according to the requirements given in 4.2.4. A documented procedure shall be established to define the controls needed:

• A) Approve documents for adequacy prior to issue.
• B) Review and update as necessary and re-approve documents
• C) Ensure that changes and current revision status of documents are identified
• D) Ensure that relevant versions of applicable documents are available at point of use
• E) Ensure documents remain legible and readily identifiable
• G) Prevent the unintended use of obsolete documents

Section 4.2.4 – The organization shall establish a documented procedure to define the controls needed for the identification, protection, retrieval, retention and disposal of records.  

How MeetingBooster helps

When implementing procedures in an organization, meetings play an important role in reviewing and continue improving the processes. MeetingBooster provides a clear and concise three-step meeting procedure that handles all documents (agenda, notes and minutes) and associated tasks. As stated in section 4, all documents must be identified, protected and retrieved. MeetingBooster securely and automatically archives documents eliminating human errors. MeetingBooster provides a customizable permission system, audit logs and data encryption to protect documents. The solution provides an approval process of agenda and minutes and allows the organization to custom label documents.  This ensures changes and current revision status are identified. The on-premise hosting option and synchronization to active directory offers extra security and integration to existing IT solutions. Within MeetingBooster documents and contents can easily be retrieved using the search feature. Contents and threads of discussions are extracted from various documents and consolidated into a new document. The software allows you to effectively overview and handle meeting series or committees. The permission system ensures that only the appropriate employees access the documents they have been granted access to. MeetingBooster provides an effective structure to execute meetings and securely archives procedures making it easier to meet regulatory compliance and audits. Key Features:

• Automatic and secure archiving of documents
• Approval process of agenda and minutes
• Clear and concise three-step meeting process
• Customizable documents labeling system
• Instantly access and search documents
• Customizable permission system
• On-premise hosting option
• Encrypted data transfer
• Use templates to ensure mandatory topics are covered

 

Section 5: Management Responsibility

5.1 – Management Commitment – Top management shall provide evidence of its commitment to the development and implementation of the quality management system and continually improving its effectiveness by conducting management reviews and ensuring the availability of resources. 5.4.2, B) Quality Management System Planning –  Top management shall ensure that quality objectives, including those needed to meet the requirements for products, are established at relevant functions and levels within the organization. The quality objectives shall be measurable and consistent with the quality policy. Top management shall ensure the integrity of the quality management system is maintained when changes to the system are planned and implemented. 5.5.2 – Management Representative – Top management shall appoint a member who has the responsibility and authority to ensure processes are established, implemented and maintained, reporting to top management on the performance of the quality management system and any need for improvement. 5.5.3 – Internal Communication – Top management shall ensure appropriate communication processes are established within the organization and that communication regarding the effectiveness of the QMA is taking place. 5.6.1 Management Review – General – Records from management reviews shall be maintained.  

How MeetingBooster helps

Meeting Booster is designed to drive accountability, streamline meeting procedures and align management goals. MeetingBooster assists in developing a quality management system by a clearly defined process of meeting activity. The solution allows you to conduct and maintain management reviews by providing meeting analytics and process performance reviews. Records from the reviews are automatically archived and maintained according to the standards in section 5. Documents can be grouped in meeting series making it easy to review if mandatory meetings have taken place. The software’s task system allows management to overview progress and status of tasks agreed upon in review meetings. Tasks reminders and integration to Outlook’s task list help drive accountability. MeetingBooster enables management to review performance across departments, committees and projects within one central database. Key Features:

• Meeting analytics provides evidence that meetings took place
• Process performance reviews
• Accountability reports for departments, committees and projects
• Customizable task system to align with company task policies
• No policy change needed to implement MeetingBooster

6. Resource Management

6.2.2E – Competence, Training and Awareness – The organization must train employees and maintain appropriate records of education, training, skills and experience

How MeetingBooster helps

MeetingBooster enables an organization to track employee attendance for training sessions. Agendas for training are clear and concise, thereby enhancing preparation for training sessions. The tasks system will drive accountability and archive documents securely without human errors as described under section 4. Key Features:

• Effectively track employee’s training attendance across the entire organization
• Easily create training agendas
• Automatically archive training minutes
• Task system to drive accountability

 

8.2.2 Internal Audits – Records or audits must be maintained

8.2.3 Monitoring and Measurement of Processes – The organization shall apply suitable methods for monitoring and, where applicable, measuring the QMS processes. 8.4 Analysis of Data – The organization shall determine, collect and analyze appropriate data to demonstrate the suitability and effectiveness of the QMS and to evaluate where continual improvement of the effectiveness of the QMS can be made. This shall include data generated as a result of monitoring and measuring and from other relevant sources. 8.5.1 – Continual Improvement – The organizations shall improve the effectiveness of the QMS

How MeetingBooster helps

MeetingBooster will help with the preparation of internal audit meetings, by facilitating a collaborative environment for creating the agenda and gathering evidence documents during the pre-audit stage. This will ease frustrations and the amount of emails and waiting time, making the audit more effective. MeetingBooster’s analytics and archiving system help an organization determine, collect and analyze processes. Analytics and evidence gathering can be performed across departments and audit logs files can determine if mandatory meetings took place. During the audit, CARs can be assigned through the tasks system. The task system allows the monitoring and measuring of the processes, and provides overviews of individual’s CARs and project’s CARs. The task system eliminates excel files traditionally used for tracking and synchronize with Outlooks task list for easy adoption. Task reminders and editing options can be configured to be aligned with the company’s practices. Key Features:

• Simplify pre-audits checklists
• Collaborate on agendas and attach evidence files
• Instantly capture notes during the audit and assign CARs or PARs
• Task management system to follow up on CARs and PARs
• Automatically archive audit tasks and minutes
• Outlook tasks and meeting integration
• Review audit documents across departments in one place
• Meeting analytics to review progress and accountability
• Audit logs to monitor if mandatory meetings took place

No downtime as documentation and tasks are always accessible in one central data location.

Conclusion:

In this article, we have illustrated how MeetingBooster can define a concise meeting process and automatically archive meeting documents. Documents are securely archived and accessible with other security features such as audit logs. MeetingBooster provides several process performance reports and analytics that help managers review performances across departments. Lastly, we explained how the solution optimizes the internal auditing process and handles the tracking of CARs. In short, MeetingBooster is a valuable tool to assist with accreditation.