How to prepare and conduct an audit closing meeting

Watch this video and take notes to create your own quality audit closing meeting checklist. You may need to watch this video multiple times, which will help you learn the material better.

Once you have your own closing meeting checklist, practice role-playing the meeting in a Zoom session and record it. Then, watch yourself in the recording and identify areas to improve. Save your recordings and repeat the process once a month. You will cringe every time you watch yourself, but every time, you will get better, and you will notice the improvement over time.

Make sure you are presenting positive feedback as well as negative findings. The goal is to verify the effectiveness of the quality system, and you can't do that if everything is bad news.

At the end of your closing meeting, leave the company with some positive comments. Recognize someone who did a great job. Give the company managers a vision of what their improved quality system might look like next year when you return.

Finally, don't forget to schedule next year's audit with recommendations for the duration of the next audit. If you are a consultant, this is future consulting revenue, but it also helps ensure that the next audit goes even more smoothly than the one you just finished.