Top 10 Microsoft Teams Governance Best Practices

What is Microsoft Teams Governance?

Microsoft Teams Governance refers to the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that ensure the effective and secure use of Microsoft Teams within an organization. It involves managing user access, data security, compliance with business standards, and regulatory requirements. Key aspects include:

• User Access Control: Defining who can create teams, add members, and manage permissions.
• Data Protection: Implementing policies for data retention, archiving, and compliance.
• Lifecycle Management: Managing the creation, maintenance, and deletion of teams to ensure they align with organizational goals.

1. Define Who is Allowed to Create Teams

Appropriate permissions are essential for governance. Unrestricted permissions can lead to uncontrolled growth and increased IT workload. To balance this, authorize specific users or groups to create teams based on business needs, or route every request through an automated Teams governance platform that applies approval workflows on your behalf. It's also advisable to have at least two team owners to ensure continuity in case one owner is unavailable.

Key takeaway: Restricting team creation to specific users helps prevent chaos and reduces IT workload.

2. Team Owners Should Not Be Site Collection Administrators

Each Microsoft Teams group comes with its own SharePoint Site Collection. Assigning Site Collection Admin rights to team owners can lead to security risks. Instead, use a service account for team creation to maintain control over SharePoint settings.

Key takeaway: Use service accounts for team creation to maintain better control over SharePoint settings.

3. Working with Channels and Apps for Enhanced Overview

An excess of workspaces can complicate collaboration. Use channels to structure workspaces and link relevant apps to increase productivity. Channels help in organizing conversations and files related to specific topics, making it easier for team members to find information.

4. Use Approval Processes to Prevent Chaos

Linking team creation to an approval process helps track and control the creation of new teams, preventing duplication and unnecessary proliferation. Such processes ensure that only necessary teams are created, aligning with organizational goals and reducing the burden on IT.

5. Choose Between Dynamic Memberships and Automation

Dynamic memberships allow for automated team member assignments based on rules, but can be restrictive. Consider using a governance solution for more flexibility, allowing for customized processes that include both dynamic rules and manual overrides.

6. Standardize Your Teams

Standardization helps users navigate Teams easily. Create templates for different team types — departments, projects, community teams — with predefined channels, tabs, and folder structures. This reduces the learning curve and ensures all teams follow a consistent structure.

7. Tagging of Documents

Proper document tagging improves searchability and organization. Use automated keywording and metadata extraction to enhance document management. Tagging documents with relevant keywords and metadata makes it easier to locate files through search functions.

8. Defining URL and Naming Conventions

Consistent naming conventions improve findability and structure. Use prefixes and metadata to standardize team names. For example, project-related teams can start with 'Project', followed by a specific identifier.

9. Lifecycle Management: Archive Inactive Teams

Regularly archive or delete inactive teams to maintain a clean and efficient Teams environment. Archiving teams sets their content to read-only, preserving the information while preventing further changes. Automated solutions can streamline the identification and archiving process.

10. Managing External Users

Regularly review and manage external user access to prevent security risks. Use automation to remove inactive external users. External users can be invited to collaborate on specific projects, but their access should be carefully monitored and revoked when no longer needed.

Conclusion

When implementing Microsoft Teams, it's important to plan ahead. It's important to strike the right balance between user freedom and IT control. Too much freedom creates confusion and uncontrolled growth; too much control leads to diminishing user acceptance. If governance and compliance are not sufficiently met, the use of a Microsoft 365 Governance solution can be a good idea.