Weeks ago, I hired a team to paint the trim on my house, which is quite high up, so they had to use a bucket lift to reach it. Everything started smoothly, but then complications arose.
Eventually, I received the following text message from one of the painters, “Hey, sorry to bother you. We seem to have run out of gas with no way down. Do you, by chance, have any gas in the garage?”
My first thought was, you’re kidding me, right? I thought they were punking me! I even went outside and started looking for hidden cameras. After making fun of them for a few minutes, I found a solution to get them down — but what a comedy.
This incident reminded me of countless scenarios within my own businesses and those of the MSPs I collaborate with, where I’ve observed a lack of established processes or checklists. Too often, we don’t think ahead and end up stuck. Remember: You’re playing chess, not checkers.
Now, your team isn’t stuck 40 feet in the air in a bucket (at least, I hope not), and they don’t risk their safety (at least, not too often). But they do risk your relationship with your customers. While in most cases it’s small, it’s death by 1,000 papercuts. Eventually, one day, lack of process causes a significant issue that costs you money, a customer, or worse.
You need a process in place today to review tickets, projects, and other outcomes regularly to know the impact. A small effort to gain visibility into your team’s work will yield a roadmap to greater efficiency.
So, keep in mind: Without a process, you might find yourself stuck in mid-air.
