There’s a saying I love: “You must inspect that which you expect.” It’s one of those simple truths that hits harder the moment you realize you forgot to do it.
Here’s what happened:
Someone on our team did all the right work. They cleaned it up, sent it to an external partner—who, in theory, was supposed to finish the job. But the partner never did their part.
And we? We never followed up.
So weeks later, we found out our work never saw the light of day. Not because we didn’t do the work. But because we assumed someone else did theirs.
This is what we call abdication:
- ✅ You delegate.
- ❌ You don’t verify.
- 💥 You end up surprised it didn’t get done.
This is super common in MSPs. Say your tech resets a vendor-hosted firewall and sends an email to the vendor: “Please reapply the config.” And then… nothing. Weeks later, the client’s VPN breaks during a storm and everyone’s confused.
Why? Because no one verified the vendor did their part.
The fix was easy. The follow-up? Forgotten.
This is why KPIs and systems matter.
They’re not about mistrust. They’re about not getting burned after doing 95% of the work. MSPs live in a world of SLAs, hand-offs, and “per my last email” chaos. If you don’t close the loop, the loop will come back and bite you.
