IT Audits: The Next Step

With most of your clients, once the relationship is established and IT audits are complete, you should move into a project plan mode where you set up a spreadsheet and organize it on a monthly basis.

During IT audits, you’re going to find that some things have to be done this month; some can wait until next month, and many things should be added to a wish list.

Wish Lists Defined

The wish list things are going to be those things that either have to be done because there’s a vendor or regulatory agency driving it, or there’s a product that’s becoming obsolete and won’t be supported anymore. Whatever the reason, a bunch of wish list projects will need to be done at a certain date.

Your best bet, and their best bet, is for you to keep track of the wish list items as if you were their full-time IT manager. Put the tasks down by month. That’s your future revenue stream.

How to Organize Tasks.

After IT audits, your first priority should be organizing tasks. It is as simple as setting up an Excel spreadsheet and putting a couple columns in there like Month, Task, Estimated Labor Cost, Estimated Product Cost for software peripherals, hardware, and a column if you need to bring in an outside contractor or vendor.

Let’s say they have an old Citrix server and they know that it needs to be upgraded because it hasn’t been touched in three or four years. If you don’t have a lot of expertise on metaframe, knowing that the project is coming up would give you plenty of time to go out and look for a specialty contractor in your area who does have Citrix metaframe expertise and is certified.

Keeping organized helps you to plan ahead with their ideas in mind.

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