1. Inventory of assets to monitor
2. Select best monitoring methodology/tools
3. Implement basic checks
4. Perform fine-tuning
5. Write procedures (incident management)
6. Train the operators
7. Deploy the solution
8. Listen to operators feedback
9. Perform fine-tuning
10. Goto 1..
source: http://blog.rootshell.be/2009/06/25/monitoring-is-also-a-process/