Microsoft Teams governance is essential housekeeping for organizations that want to reduce task overload, remain more strategic in their Teams usage and approaches, ensure consistent security, and maintain robust lifecycle management. In part 01 of this series, we looked at the first two steps towards robust governance – defining who is allowed to create teams and the boundaries of lifecycle management. Here we move on to the next five best practice steps toward superb Microsoft Teams governance.
The best practice road trip part 02: Best practice signposts
Signpost 03: Guest access
Microsoft Teams allows users to provide guest access which can be immensely useful when collaborating with customers or end-users outside of your ecosystem but can present a security and governance risk if not managed correctly. You may want certain team members to enable guest access as they collaborate in cross-functional teams and environments while limiting guest access in other scenarios. Guest access has become a lot easier within Microsoft Teams as it does allow for improved collaboration, but it can present a security risk if not managed tightly.
Additional note: Create a policy that clearly defines how guest access works and the conditions in which it is allowed, and then link back the removal of guests and management of external users to your lifecycle strategy.
Signpost 04: Create channels that allow for better oversight
It can get muddy inside teams. Lots of people, multiple chats, and lost information. Minimize the complexity and the risks by structuring channels into relevant sub-groups so that information can be tightly managed and easily accessed. Use the General channel as a parking spot – here is where people find one another and can interact on a group level – and then create new channels for the relevant topics so that users can navigate around the team effectively. This ensures that documents, files, data and conversations within each channel are relevant, and it significantly reduces time wastage and poor visibility into all aspects of the project.
Additional note: This can be enhanced with additional apps and services such as OneNote or Microsoft Planner that help refine the processes and information access.
Signpost 05: It’s all in the name
This is perhaps one of the most important Microsoft Teams best practice steps – ensuring rigorous naming conventions throughout the organizations and within every team. Yes, it’s nice to have a team with its own unique lingo and naming, but this will only be fun for perhaps the first two teams. After that, it gets messy and complicated. People aren’t sure what the names mean, new users will have to start from fresh which will waste time and potentially lead to incorrect document filing, and productivity will take a hit. The best practice step is to create a cohesive naming system that is compulsory for every team and every channel.
Additional note: Combine clear naming conventions with a document tagging policy so that documents are stored and labelled correctly. This will also help with overall governance and compliance around data storage and protection for the business.
Governance is everything in your organization and integrating governance into MS Teams will transform how well the platform works and how much value your employees get from it. Mint can support your business in establishing Microsoft Teams governance best practices – we have extensive expertise within this ecosystem and can workshop with you to take your Microsoft Teams investment to the next level. Actually, we can take it to an entirely new level as there are even more best practice steps that we can help you introduce to make your Teams into teamwork.
