Clause 6.2 is audited as two things: objectives that meet the criteria the clause lists, and a plan behind each one saying what will be done, what resources are required, who is responsible, when it will be completed and how the result will be evaluated. Whether the objective was achieved is not among those criteria. A target missed on measured evidence, monitored through the year and carried into the management review with a decision attached, is a system doing what the standard describes. An objective nobody monitored is a finding whether the number landed or not.
What the clause requires
ISO 9001 clause 6.2.1 requires quality objectives at relevant functions, levels and processes. Each has to be consistent with the quality policy, measurable, take account of applicable requirements, and be relevant to the conformity of products and services and to the enhancement of customer satisfaction. Each then has to be monitored, communicated and updated as appropriate, and documented information on the objectives is maintained.
The other two standards set the same shape with different inputs, and the differences are where an integrated system usually loses marks. ISO 14001 clause 6.2.1 requires environmental objectives to take account of the significant environmental aspects and associated compliance obligations you determined earlier in the standard. ISO 45001 requires OH&S objectives to take account of the results of the assessment of risks and opportunities and the results of consultation with workers and, where they exist, workers' representatives. ISO 9001 says "measurable" with no qualifier; the other two say "measurable (if practicable)", and ISO 45001 adds "or capable of performance evaluation", which is the allowance for an objective whose progress is judged rather than counted.
Clause 6.2.2 is the half that gets skipped. It requires planning for each objective: what will be done, what resources will be required, who will be responsible, when it will be completed, and how the results will be evaluated. ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 add indicators for monitoring progress to that last item, and ISO 45001 goes further than either of the others on the record, requiring documented information on the OH&S objectives and on the plans to achieve them to be maintained and retained. Under ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 the objectives themselves are the documented information the clause names, which is why the plan behind them is the part most often absent when we ask for it.
Where the findings land
The most common one is deployment. An organization sets three objectives at board level, on customer complaints, recordable injuries and electricity consumption, and sets nothing at the process that produces the complaints. ISO 9001 names relevant functions, levels and processes, so a set that stops at the top is a finding against 6.2.1 even where every objective on it is well written and well measured. Which functions and processes are relevant is your determination. Having made no determination is the gap.
Second is the objective with no plan behind it. A percentage on a slide with a department name beside it answers one of the five items in 6.2.2 and leaves four open, and the four it leaves open are the ones that decide whether anything happens.
Third is the OH&S objective set consisting only of outcome counts: zero lost-time injuries, zero incidents. Those are measurable and consistent with most policies, and they leave the 6.2.2 plan with nothing to describe, because no action moves a count of events that have not happened yet. We ask what will be done, and the answer is usually the existing program restated. ISO 45001 6.2.1 requires objectives to maintain and continually improve the management system and OH&S performance, and that is easier to evidence against something you do than against something you hope will not occur.
Fourth is the environmental objective set with no line back to the aspects register: paper, cartridges and office electricity, in an organization whose own register of aspects names solvent emissions and process water as significant. The objectives may be perfectly run. The finding is against 6.2.1's requirement to take the significant aspects and compliance obligations into account, and it is one of the few places where a well-managed initiative still gets written up.
Monitoring is the last of them. An objective monitored by being recalculated in the week before the audit meets the word and nothing else, and the evidence says so: one data point, produced once. Clause 9.1.1 is where you determine what needs to be monitored and when results are analyzed, and an objective that appears nowhere in that determination is the usual first sign. Communication is tested the same way, by asking the people whose work is supposed to move the number. A supervisor who can state their area's objective and where the last figure came from closes that requirement faster than a circulation list does.
What the clause does not require
No number of objectives, no format, no register, no acronym, no dashboard and no annual cycle. The interval is yours. "Updated as appropriate" does not mean changed every year, and an objective that is still the right objective can stand into a second and third year. What we sample is whether it was reconsidered against current performance and current risks, and the record of that reconsideration usually sits in the management review.
It also does not require achievement. What a missed target creates is a question, and what answers it is the plan: the resource that was to be provided by a date, the action that was to be taken by a named owner. Where the plan itself was not carried out, the finding is against the plan rather than against the number, and it is a different finding from one raised against an objective that was pursued and did not land.
Two boundaries sit on our side of this. We will not set your objectives, choose your indicators or write the plan, because that is consultancy on a system we then certify and ISO/IEC 17021-1 requires us to decline it. We will explain what clause 6.2 requires and why a finding was raised. And the certificate carries no verdict on your performance against any objective you set. The register entry records the standard edition, the scope, the sites, the status and the validity dates, and nothing about the numbers.