Two of my favorite quotes of all time:
“A cord of many strands is not easily broken.”
“Without counsel, plans go awry, but in the multitude of counselors they are established.”
Both of these came to mind recently. This post isn’t intended to be preachy, although I can see how it still might come across that way. If it does, I apologize in advance and hope you take from it what I intend.
The LinkedIn Post That Started It
I was on White Collar Facebook (also known as LinkedIn) when I came across a post from an IT executive extolling the many benefits of outsourcing his IT to an MSP. His story was simple. His in-house IT person was competent and professional. But when that person resigned, all the tribal knowledge walked out the door with him. It took considerable time and ultimately a transition to an MSP to get the organization back on track. The poster said it was the best decision he ever made.
Of course, no strong opinion can be cast onto social media like pearls before swine without a few snarky hogs showing up to be disagreeable. The corporate IT crowd descended with comments like:
- “It was poor management that caused this issue.”
- “You didn’t have good knowledge base systems.”
- “You blame your employee for your failings.”
The original poster responded with grace. He clarified that he had tremendous respect for his former employee. They DID have a knowledge base system. The problem? Every article in the KB was written by the person who left and adhered to by the person who left. Nobody else had ever actually walked through them.
Why Most Knowledge Base Systems Are Useless
I’ve written thousands of KB articles in my career, and here’s the hard truth: a KB system that’s never been tested by someone other than the author is worthless.
It’s a backup system with no recovery testing. You think it works. You believe it works. You only find out it doesn’t work when you actually need it, and by then it’s too late.
This is almost always the situation in smaller organizations where one person wears multiple hats. I’ve been that guy. I’ve been the Infrastructure Manager handling all the high-level work and writing all the KBs hoping that if I get hit by a train tomorrow, the organization can keep functioning. The truth? They usually can’t. Not without extensive discovery, additional planning, and additional hiring.
That “awesome guy who does it all so well” is actually irreplaceable. And in most cases he probably shouldn’t be in your company in that role at all.
Now, if that guy stays for 20+ years while the company grows from 10 employees to 10,000, the hiring manager will say, “I’m a genius for hiring this guy. Look at how well we’ve done.” The truth is that manager just got lucky. Buses really do hit people. Illness and death really do catch people unawares. Hiring an irreplaceable single point of failure isn’t brilliant judgment. It’s gambling, and you happened to win the hand.
So Who Was Right in the LinkedIn Debate?
Nobody.
Anytime someone tries to compress a complex issue like staffing or outsourcing into a few paragraphs on LinkedIn, they haven’t written an answer. They’ve written a meme that anyone can interpret however they want.
What I actually think? Every organization should consider an MSP. Not necessarily hire one. Consider one.
Every organization should evaluate the risk associated with their internal IT staff getting raptured tomorrow and leaving all the less-righteous non-IT folks behind to figure things out. What are the risks? Weigh them all. Then build a system that is resilient at a price point you can accept.
If gambling on one super-skilled IT person is a risk you can tolerate, great. Go for it. If it isn’t, then maybe a good in-house IT person backed by a third-party MSP is a better fit.
Whatever you do, don’t buy the bull excrement that you have to fully outsource OR fully insource. Both are lies sold by people who only sell one of those two options.
A Practical Framework
Here’s what I’ve seen actually work in the real world:
1 to 50 employees: A full MSP relationship is usually the best fit. The volume of work doesn’t justify a dedicated hire, and the breadth of expertise an MSP brings is hard to replicate with a single person.
51 to 2,000+ employees: A hybrid approach almost always wins. In-house staff who know the business deeply, partnered with an MSP through some form of co-managed arrangement.
None of this works if the MSP stinks at their job. None of it works if the in-house team is belligerent toward the MSP. So how do you tell which side is the problem when things go wrong?
Great question. Glad I asked it for you.
The in-house team and the MSP should be using the same ticketing, time tracking, and project management systems, and they should be held to the same KPIs. Failure to do this often means failure in the relationship and a lack of resilience. The in-house team has to get with the program. The MSP has to help put the program in place.
Five Questions to Ask Any MSP You’re Evaluating
If you are shopping for an MSP today, ask these questions and require documentation to back up the answers:
- Does your MSP use a business management system such as Traction EOS?
- What is your public-facing SLA?
- What is your internal-facing SLA?
- What are your average reactive support resolution times for the past six months, from request receipt to resolution, across all of your clients?
- What were the top five slowest response times on reactive support tickets last month?
There are plenty of other good questions you can ask. But if an MSP can answer these five with a straight face and documentation to back them up, you may have found what you’re looking for.
One more thing worth remembering: not every organization needs or wants a five-minute reactive response rate. Some businesses operate just fine with a 24-hour or even 48-hour response and resolution rate. Think hard about what your business actually requires, then budget accordingly. Faster response times cost more money. Period.
Closing Thought
A cord of many strands is not easily broken. In the multitude of counselors, plans are established. Whether your “many strands” are all in-house IT professionals, all MSP, or a blend of both, what matters is that you’ve built something resilient. Something that survives a resignation, a bus, or the rapture (if you plan on staying behind) without taking your entire business down with it.
That’s the goal. Everything else is just LinkedIn noise.
Brian Largent is the CEO of The ArcLight Group, an MSP serving Tulsa-area businesses for 18 years. ArcLight specializes in supporting regulated industries including healthcare, legal, finance, and manufacturing. Reach the team at (918) 270-6600.
Brian Largent
Father to five, husband to one, founder, CEO, and all around swell fella (or so I'm told)
