Template
Responsibility matrix template for infrastructure
Use this to agree who does what across your internal team, your MSP and an engineering partner. Adapt the domains to your environment, then agree and sign it before anything changes hands.
How to use it
For each domain, name the party that is Responsible for doing the work, the one Accountable for the outcome (only one), who is Consulted before changes and who is Informed afterwards. The example assignments below are a common starting point, not a recommendation for every organisation.
Domains
- Service desk and user requests. Responsible: MSP or internal team. Accountable: internal team. Consulted: engineering partner for platform issues. Informed: engineering partner.
- Devices and on-site support. Responsible: MSP or internal team. Accountable: internal team. Informed: engineering partner.
- Identity architecture and Conditional Access. Responsible: engineering partner. Accountable: engineering partner. Consulted: internal team. Informed: MSP.
- Access approvals. Responsible: internal team. Accountable: internal team. Informed: engineering partner and MSP.
- Patching. Responsible: engineering partner. Accountable: engineering partner. Consulted: internal team for change windows. Informed: MSP.
- Backup and restore testing. Responsible: engineering partner. Accountable: engineering partner. Consulted: internal team for recovery priorities.
- Cloud operations and governance. Responsible: engineering partner. Accountable: engineering partner. Consulted: internal team for budget and new workloads.
- Network and firewalls. Responsible: engineering partner. Accountable: engineering partner. Consulted: MSP and internal team for site changes.
- Security detection and response. Responsible: engineering partner, including its security operations centre. Accountable: engineering partner. Consulted: internal team for risk decisions.
- Applications and vendors. Responsible: internal team. Accountable: internal team. Consulted: engineering partner for platform changes.
- Budget and priorities. Responsible: internal team. Accountable: internal team. Consulted: engineering partner.
Read the rest of this template
Enter your work details to unlock this and every other guide on the site. We'll also send you a note in case you want to talk it through with an engineer.
Handoffs to agree
- How tickets are escalated between parties, through which route and with what evidence
- How changes are announced, so the service desk isn't surprised by user calls
- Who declares a major incident and who leads it
- Who holds each admin account, and how access is granted and removed
Keep it current
- Walk through a recent incident against the matrix and fix any gap it shows.
- Sign it before go-live.
- Review it every quarter and whenever a service changes hands.
Next step
This guide supports Managed Engineering. Talk to an engineer if you want it worked through for your environment.
Start a conversation
Close the gaps between your team and your providers.
Talk to an engineer about splitting the work.
Talk to an Engineer