Device & Endpoint Strategy (Non-Managed)

1. Device landscape mapping

We start by building a clear, non-technical snapshot of your current endpoints, such as:

• Laptops and desktops (home and office, personal and business)
• Work phones and tablets (including bring-your-own devices where relevant)
• Printers, scanners and other local equipment used for work
• Shared family or household machines that occasionally carry business activity

We keep this light but meaningful:

• What each device is mainly used for (e.g. admin, delivery, design, client calls).
• Who regularly uses it.
• Where it is usually kept or used (home office, co-working space, client premises).
• Which accounts, tools or types of information are likely to be accessed from it.

The goal is not a perfect asset list. It is a clear, human picture of where work actually happens, across what hardware, in what kind of environments.

2. Principles & risk view

Every device set-up carries some risk. The question is: what level of risk feels proportionate for your size, type of work and clients?

Together we shape a simple view of:

• What you most want to protect (client information, internal materials, personal details, continuity of work).
• Where the most realistic everyday risks sit (lost devices, shared screens, "borrowed" laptops, unattended printers, casual storage of files).
• Your tolerance for disruption – how quickly you would need to be working again if a device failed.

We then translate that into a handful of plain-language principles, for example:

• "Devices used for client work should feel like part of the business, even if they are personally owned."
• "It should be reasonably difficult for someone outside the business to access work materials via a lost or borrowed device."
• "If one device fails, there is a believable path to working again without re-creating everything from memory."
• "Household and shared spaces should be considered when designing how we use devices."

These principles become the anchor for all later choices about device patterns and everyday practices.

3. Device patterns & standards (non-managed)

Next, we define some simple patterns for how devices sit inside your business. For example:

• Primary work devices – the machines you rely on most heavily.
• Secondary or occasional devices – tablets, secondary laptops, etc.
• Shared devices – a family desktop, a shared office machine, a shared printer.
• "Edge" devices – occasional access from a partner's computer, a library PC, and so on.

For each category we outline:

• What kind of work is appropriate there.
• What kind of work should be avoided there.
• What sort of set-up guidance you want to follow (e.g. using certain types of accounts, keeping work and personal activity reasonably distinct, sensible home-office habits).
• Any additional care you expect around travel, public spaces or shared spaces.

We also consider:

• How you want to handle bring-your-own devices for collaborators or staff.
• How you want to organise device roles as you grow – for example, "this laptop is our 'spare' machine for emergencies" vs "this one is permanent for a particular role."

All of this stays in the realm of strategy, standards and guidance:

• We help you decide what your patterns should be.
• We express them clearly in everyday language.
• You or your chosen providers decide which tools or set-up choices you'll use to put those patterns into practice.

4. Device onboarding, offboarding & lifecycle

Devices have a life story: they arrive, they are used, they change role, and at some point they move on.

We help you design lightweight flows for:

Onboarding a new device

When a new laptop, phone or printer appears, what needs to happen before it's used for work?

• Which accounts or tools should it be connected to, and in what order?
• What basic steps signal "this is now part of our working set-up", rather than "I just opened the box and started using it".

We keep this as a short checklist or sequence you can reuse each time – something realistic for a small team or one-person business.

Changes of role

We also design what happens when:

• A personal device becomes a core work device (or vice versa).
• A device moves from one person to another.
• A device stops being used regularly but is kept as a spare.

We agree how you treat devices differently once they change role, so your landscape doesn't slowly become a pile of half-retired machines with uncertain status.

Offboarding and retirement

Finally, we shape a simple approach for when a device leaves your working world, for example:

• It is sold, recycled, given away, or formally retired.
• A collaborator leaves and takes their own device with them.
• You decide a shared machine is no longer appropriate for work.

Here we focus on:

• What you want to happen to work materials and access before a device leaves your ecosystem.
• How you want to record the fact that it has left.
• Any guidance you wish to share with the person taking it on (if relevant).

Again, this is process and expectation, not technical hands-on work. You may carry out the steps yourself, or ask your chosen IT support to do so, using your new checklist as the guide.

5. Everyday practices & self-checks

Even the best patterns only matter if day-to-day habits support them.

We help you design:

Everyday device habits

Plain-language guidance for:

• Working in shared spaces (home, co-working, cafés) in a way that feels proportionate and sensible.
• Handling calls, online meetings and screen-sharing at home when others are around.
• Using printers and scanners in shared spaces without leaving sensitive material unattended.
• Travelling with laptops and phones in a way that fits your level of risk and comfort.

This is written in normal language, aimed at real humans, not as a technical policy document.

Weekly and monthly "device housekeeping"

A tiny amount of regular attention goes a long way.

We design small, repeatable self-checks, for example:

• A short weekly or fortnightly "device tidy" – files, clutter, where things are being stored.
• A monthly or quarterly look at which devices are actually being used, and how.
• A simple note of anything that feels uncomfortable ("this device probably shouldn't still have X on it") so it can be addressed with your chosen IT person or by you at a later point.

These check-ins can be woven into your operating rhythm, so device care becomes part of how you run the business, not a separate project you never get to.

6. Implementation notes & conversations with providers

Lastly, we help you translate your strategy into practical next steps, including:

• A short, clear summary of your device & endpoint approach that can sit inside your operations playbook.
• A small set of implementation notes outlining where you're likely to need external technical help and what to ask for.
• Suggestions for how to speak to any IT or security provider you choose to work with, in language that feels comfortable to you and clear to them.

The aim is that, when you do decide to:

• Ask a trusted technician to set up a new machine
• Talk to a provider about home-office equipment
• Review your wi-fi and local device practices

…you have clarity about what you want and why, instead of starting from "we just need it to be better somehow."