Getting your MSP holiday-ready

We know your MSP has worked hard throughout the year to ensure your client businesses ride smoothly. Now the holiday season is here. the season of giving, holidaying, and Christmas festivities!

Just like you prep your dough for a perfectly baked pie, your MSP needs some prep too.

Here’s how to keep your MSP humming smoothly when you are away enjoying the holiday season with your friends and families. Sleigh the holiday season!

Remove critical dependencies

Make sure your technicians enjoy their holidays without being interrupted by issues. Remove dependencies on team members that can cause operational blocks if they are away. Create a visual dependency map. Ensure critical tasks are done or handed over before they leave for the holidays.

Ready your skeleton staff

Skeleton staff refers to the minimal number of people to ensure business continuity during holidays or when staff availability is low. You can create a list of people on holiday and people who will be available, identify skills, and assign tasks accordingly. If your skeleton staff doesn’t suffice, consider outsourcing.

Create detailed SOPs

Whether you’re training your skeleton staff or outsourcing, you need to have detailed SOPs ready so that anyone can step in and know how things work. This ensures that knowledge is distributed and any people dependencies are eliminated.

Find a body double for you

Find a replacement, delegate, and trust them to cover for you while you’re away. It’s tough to not think about work when you’re the captain of the ship, but holiday or not, you must trust people enough to delegate some of your responsibilities. You don’t want to become a bottleneck in your own company.

Revisit your SLAs and approvals

With fewer hands on the deck, you can’t operate with regular SLAs. Adjust your SLAs, set realistic deadlines, and keep your clients informed on the timeline changes to avoid dissatisfaction. Also, keep process approvers and decision-makers informed to ensure uninterrupted workflow.

Bite less

Don’t undertake important projects during this time. Your technicians need predictability this time, and anything out of the box should be put on hold until things are back to normal.

Define emergency protocols

Get a set of protocols in case of emergencies like cyberattacks or downtime. This can avoid panic and bring predictability even in unforeseen circumstances.

Take advantage of automation

Put common tasks on autopilot. Create workflows to keep everyday tasks running smoothly and to take the burden off your lean team.

Finally, “DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING”

Put it on banners and hang it everywhere if you can. Ask your technicians to not do anything experimental or risky during this time.

Your business should be on freeze mode, only fix what’s broken, and hold the fort until the entire team returns.

And, don't forget to enjoy your holidays!