What information should be prepared before an IT assessment?

You don't need to have everything documented. An approximate list of users, locations, teams, applications, providers, frequent incidents and services that cannot be stopped helps guide the first conversation.

Risks to review

  • Initiate changes without knowing dependencies.
  • Prioritize symptoms and leave the main risk unaddressed.
  • Share sensitive passwords or access during the initial evaluation.
  • Accept a scope without those responsible or success criteria.

Safe recommendations

  1. Identify business and technology managers.
  2. List critical services and times of greatest operation.
  3. Gather available contracts, inventories or diagrams.
  4. Describe recent incidents and their impact.
  5. Define what you hope to improve and what should not be interrupted.

When to seek specialized help

  • There is an active outage or loss of access.
  • A security incident is suspected.
  • An upcoming change affects servers, mail, network or critical data.

Reference sources

These public sources provide general good-practice guidance. They do not replace an assessment of your environment.