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Monthly business review template (operations review agenda)

A monthly business review is the leadership meeting where a plant or a company looks at the month's results against target, decides what to do about the reds and checks that last month's actions were done. It is also called the monthly operations review, the performance review or the leadership meeting, and in a tiered system it is the top tier above the daily and weekly meetings. This template gives it a fixed shape: a meeting schedule with a data cut-off and a pre-read date, a 90-minute agenda in nine blocks with the reporting order (who speaks when, for how many minutes, on which KPIs), a KPI pack with one row per KPI showing target, this month, last month, red or green and how many months it has been red, a prep checklist for every presenter and one for the chair, the meeting rules, and a decisions and actions log. The Word version is the blank form to edit; the PDF prints it with a worked example; the Excel version works out the clock time of each block, colours every KPI red or green, flags any KPI red three months in a row for an A3 or a project, scores the prep grid per presenter, ages every action and works out the pre-read and cut-off dates for the year. Generic, for any plant, with no software needed.

Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.

Page 1 of the monthly business review templateFields for site, month, date, chair, scribe and start time, a table of nine timed blocks from safety to the close with minutes, clock, presenter, KPIs reviewed and red and green counts, beside the five roles and the schedule rules.
Meeting schedule90-minute agendaReporting orderKPIs per block with ownerRed or greenMonths red rulePresenter prep checklistChair checklistMeeting rulesDecisions logActions log with days lateMeeting check
Filled-in Monthly business review template (operations review agenda): a plant's September KPI pack, nine of eighteen red
The same sheet filled in with the worked example (page 4 of the PDF, illustrative numbers). Open full size (opens the picture in a new tab)

When to use it

When to use a monthly business review template

  • When the monthly meeting runs two hours, reads out every number and ends without a decision.
  • When presenters build slides the night before and the leadership team sees the numbers for the first time in the room.
  • When the same KPI has been red for months and the meeting hears the same explanation each time.
  • When actions from the last meeting are not reviewed, or their dates move every month.
  • When setting up a tiered meeting system and the top tier needs an agenda, a pack and a log like the daily tiers have.

How to fill it in

  1. 1

    Fix the schedule

    Once a month, the same day and time, for example the second Tuesday at 13:00. The data cut-off is the last day of the month; the pack goes out two working days before. The Excel schedule sheet works the dates out for the year.
  2. 2

    Set the reporting order

    Nine blocks: safety, quality, delivery, cost, people, maintenance and assets, strategic goals and projects, then decisions and actions, then the close. Name the presenter and the KPIs for each block and give each one its minutes. The template's 90 minutes are example values; change them, keep the order.
  3. 3

    Build the KPI pack

    One row per KPI: owner, unit, better higher or lower, target, this month, last month. The sheet marks each one red or green, shows the trend against last month, and counts the months red in a row. Numbers come from the agreed source; nothing is re-typed from slides.
  4. 4

    Prepare, two working days before

    Every presenter runs the six checks: numbers from the source, a cause and a countermeasure for every red, twelve months of trend, last month's actions marked, one page per KPI group, and each ask written as a decision needed. The chair chases missing pre-reads before the meeting, not in it.
  5. 5

    Run it to the clock

    Greens get one sentence. The time goes to the reds in agenda order and to the decisions the presenters asked for. No problem-solving in the room: an owner and a date for the follow-up. A KPI red three months in a row gets an A3 or a project, not a fourth explanation.
  6. 6

    Log and read back

    The scribe writes every decision (who decided what, by when) and every action (one owner, one due date, never moved) as it is made, and reads them back in the last block. The log goes out the same day, and next month's block 8 starts from it.

The agenda

The 90-minute reporting order, block by block

Nine blocks in a fixed order. Blocks 1 to 7 run the business, reds first; block 8 is where the time saved on greens goes. The minutes are example values: change them, keep the order and the total.

  • Safety

    Minutes
    10
    Presenter
    Safety manager
    KPIs reviewed
    TRIR, near-miss reports, hazard actions open over 30 days
  • Quality

    Minutes
    12
    Presenter
    Quality manager
    KPIs reviewed
    First-pass yield, customer complaints, cost of poor quality
  • Delivery

    Minutes
    12
    Presenter
    Planning manager
    KPIs reviewed
    OTIF, schedule adherence, finished goods days
  • Cost

    Minutes
    12
    Presenter
    Controller
    KPIs reviewed
    Conversion cost per unit, overtime %, scrap cost
  • People

    Minutes
    8
    Presenter
    HR manager
    KPIs reviewed
    Absenteeism, voluntary turnover, training compliance
  • Maintenance and assets

    Minutes
    8
    Presenter
    Maintenance manager
    KPIs reviewed
    PM compliance, breakdown hours, OEE on the constraint
  • Strategic goals and projects

    Minutes
    12
    Presenter
    CI manager
    KPIs reviewed
    Goal scores or bowling chart, project milestones due this month
  • Decisions and actions

    Minutes
    10
    Presenter
    Chair
    KPIs reviewed
    Last month's actions done or not; decisions needed today
  • Close and meeting check

    Minutes
    6
    Presenter
    Chair and scribe
    KPIs reviewed
    Read-back of every decision, owner and date; the meeting check

A filled-in example

Illustrative, not a benchmark

An example: a metal components plant's September 2026 review, held on 13 October (illustrative numbers, the same as the Excel example sheets and PDF pages 4 and 5).

  • The pack has 18 KPIs in six blocks. Nine are red: TRIR 1.8 against 1.5, three hazard actions open over 30 days, seven complaints against six, OTIF 93.2% against 95%, finished goods 19 days against 16, overtime 9.5% against 8%, scrap cost 38 against 35 thousand, turnover 14% against 12%, breakdown hours 62 against 60. Nine are green.
  • Four KPIs have been red three months or more (TRIR 3, OTIF 4, finished goods 6, turnover 5), so under the rule each gets an A3 or a project with an owner. Three KPIs got worse than last month: hazard actions, overtime and scrap cost.
  • The meeting was planned for 90 minutes from 13:00; it started at 13:02 and ended at 14:33, 91 minutes. Delivery ran three minutes over on the OTIF discussion; the close was cut to five.
  • Three decisions: an A3 on OTIF owned by the planning manager, twelve weeks of a second setter on press line 2, and holding the 16-day finished goods target while two slow-moving SKUs are stopped. Four new actions were logged, each with one owner and a date.
  • Of last month's four actions, three are done: the complaint root causes and the night-shift training plan by their dates, the press 9 drive nine days late. The scrap cost Pareto is still open, seven days overdue.

KPIs: 9 red, 9 green, 4 red three months or more, 3 worse than last month. Actions: 8 on the log, 5 open, 1 overdue, 3 done, 2 of 3 (67%) by their due date. Decisions: 3, each with who decided and the date it takes effect.

Common mistakes

  • Seeing the numbers for the first time in the room

    A review without a pre-read is a presentation. Send the pack two working days before, and use the meeting for the reds and the decisions.

  • Reading out the greens

    Every green read aloud is a minute taken from a red. One sentence per green; the rest of the block goes to what missed.

  • The fourth month of explanation

    A KPI red three months in a row has a cause nobody has found. The decision is an A3 or a project with an owner, not a better story.

  • Slides built for the meeting

    A deck made the night before has numbers typed by hand and a trend that starts last month. One page per KPI group from the agreed source, twelve months of trend.

  • Actions without a review

    An action log that is never read is a wish list. Block 8 starts with last month's actions: done or not, and a late action keeps its date and shows its days late.

  • Solving the problem in the meeting

    Eight people watching two solve one problem is how 90 minutes becomes 150. Name an owner and a date; the people needed meet straight after.

Download the template

Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.

Run this template in LeanSuite

In LeanSuite, every goal shows Met or Missed each month from its KPI, Goal health shows every company goal by facility for the last closed month with the goals missed two months in a row, and a red KPI opens an action, an A3 or a project.

See it in a 45-minute demo

FAQ

Monthly business review template (operations review agenda): common questions

  1. The monthly meeting where a plant's or a company's leadership looks at the month's KPIs against target, decides what to do about the ones that missed, and checks last month's actions. It is also called the monthly operations review or the leadership meeting, and in a tiered meeting system it is the top tier.

  2. The chair, usually the plant manager or site leader, one presenter per block (safety, quality, planning, the controller, HR, maintenance, CI), a scribe and a finance partner. People who only answer one question are invited for their block, not for the whole meeting.

  3. This template plans 90 minutes in nine blocks, with the pack read before the meeting. Reviews that run longer are usually seeing the numbers for the first time, reading out greens or solving problems in the room. Fix those three and 90 minutes is enough for a plant.

  4. One row per KPI: the owner, the unit, whether higher or lower is better, the target, this month, last month, and how many months in a row it has been red. Red or green comes from the numbers, not from the presenter. For every red, the cause in one sentence and a countermeasure with an owner and a date.

  5. The template's rule is three months: a KPI red three months in a row gets an A3 or a project with an owner, not another month of explanation. The number is an example; a plant can set two or four. The point is that the meeting makes a decision instead of hearing the same story again.

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