Free service guide · PDF

The Co-Managed IT Playbook

How to split the work, share the tools and cover every hour without losing control

A responsibility matrix template covering 12 common IT areas
Access, tooling and change-control rules that keep every action traceable
An escalation and after-hours runbook you can adapt in an afternoon
A quarterly review agenda and the metrics worth tracking

12 pages22-item checklist30/60/90-day plan

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Cover and two sample pages of The Co-Managed IT Playbook, a free 12-page PDF guide from Alpiba with a 22-point checklist — A look inside: the cover and two pages from the 12-page PDF.

What's inside

Inside the guide.

Co-managed IT works when both teams know exactly what they own, and it fails when they assume. The problems that sink these partnerships are rarely technical: an alert nobody acted on because each side thought the other had it, a change made without notice, a vacation that left a gap. This playbook turns those assumptions into written agreements.

Work through it with your IT lead and your provider in the same room. Fill in the matrix together, agree the access rules, write the escalation runbook and put the quarterly review on the calendar. It is written to work with any provider, and every template can be adapted to your own systems.

Decide what problem you are solving
Build the responsibility matrix
Access, tooling and change control
Escalation and after-hours runbook
Running the partnership
The checklist22 items in 4 groups
Questions to ask any IT provider10 questions
Your 30/60/90-day plan3 phases, step by step
Plain-English glossary8 terms

Read Part 1 free

The opening chapter of the guide, in full. The rest of the guide, the checklist and the 90-day plan are in the PDF.

Decide what problem you are solving

Before splitting anything, name the problem. Each one leads to a different arrangement, and confusing them leads to a provider doing work your team wanted to keep, or ignoring work your team assumed was handed off.

Match the problem to the hand-off
If the problem is	Hand off	Keep in-house
Coverage: nobody after hours or on vacation	After-hours support and alert response	Daytime helpdesk and user relationships
Depth: problems beyond your team's skills	Escalations, security hardening and complex cloud work	First-line diagnosis and business context
Capacity: projects stall behind tickets	Project delivery or helpdesk overflow	Project ownership and priorities
Security: nobody can watch alerts 24/7	SOC monitoring and first response	Business decisions during an incident
Continuity: everything depends on one person	Shared documentation and a second team	Day-to-day leadership of IT

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A preview

A sample from the guide.

Here's the first checklist group and a few of the questions. The full guide has all 22 checklist items, 10 questions and the 90-day plan.

Scope and split

The problem you are solving is written down: coverage, depth, capacity, security or continuity
Responsibility matrix completed, with one accountable owner per row
Gray-area tasks listed and assigned
After-hours scope defined
Project work separated from day-to-day support
Matrix dated and stored with your documentation

Questions to ask any IT provider

1How do you decide what our team keeps and what you take on, and how often do we revisit it?
2Will every one of your engineers use a named, MFA-protected account in our environment?
3Which tools and agents will you install, and what will our team be able to see?
4When an alert fires at 2am, who looks at it, and which actions can they take before calling us?

+ 6 more questions in the full guide

Get the full guide Related: Co-Managed IT

Co-Managed IT at a glance. Included: After-hours & vacation coverage, 24/7 SOC monitoring, Microsoft 365 & Google expertise, Network & server projects, Shared documentation and Escalation path. How it works: Discovery & Analysis, Solution Design, Implement and Protect & Optimize. — Co-Managed IT at a glance: what is included and how we roll it out.

Your first 30 days

Where to start this month.

The guide's 30/60/90-day plan begins with these steps. Assign an owner to each and review progress every two weeks.

1Name the problem you are solving and share it with the provider
2Complete the responsibility matrix in a joint workshop
3Set up named accounts, least-privilege rights and one ticket system
4List every tool the provider will install

Key terms in plain English

Co-managed IT: A partnership in which an internal IT team and an outside provider share IT work under a written split of responsibilities.
RACI: A responsibility matrix that names who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed for each task or area.
Escalation: Passing an issue to someone with more skill, authority or availability when the first person can't resolve it.
Break-glass account: An emergency admin account kept sealed and monitored, used only when normal access fails.
Least privilege: Giving each person and tool only the access its role needs, and nothing more.
SOC: Security operations center: the team that watches security alerts, investigates them and responds, often around the clock.
Runbook: Step-by-step written instructions for a recurring task or an incident, so anyone qualified can follow them.
Change window: An agreed time when planned changes may be made, chosen to limit disruption to the business.