The first six months of an MSP relationship

The first six months of an MSP engagement is mostly not about fixing problems. It is about establishing the working relationship that will determine whether the next several years are productive or painful.

Months 1 to 2: Discovery

Understand the environment. Document what is actually there. Find the orphaned servers, the expired SSL certs, the password file in someone's email. No major changes yet.

Months 3 to 4: Stabilization

Address the most urgent issues found during discovery. Set up monitoring and alerting. Establish the support intake process and start collecting tickets through it.

Months 5 to 6: Baseline

Implement the security baseline. Document everything that has changed. Hold the first quarterly business review and present a roadmap for the next six months.

What good looks like at month six

• An accurate inventory.
• A documented security baseline that every system meets.
• A monitoring stack catching incidents before users notice.
• A roadmap of work that the customer agrees with.
• A working relationship where issues get raised early instead of late.