By default anyone can create a team (and its associated SharePoint site). This leads to multiple Teams and confusion about where to work.

“Where did we work on that report?"

As use grows over time info gets compartmentalised & mistakes happen.

By default Team owners & members can change key settings on the SharePoint sites - this can make it harder for users to use and even access this info.

Personal or sensitive information held in Teams can become a ticking time bomb. Is content being held in Teams that should have been disposed of or secured?

All of the above raises risk and potential liability for indefensible disposal, not to mention making it even harder to gather the info needed for OIA, LGOIMA or Ministerial requests.

You and others getting disillusioned and returning to email, meetings, and file share use.

All business activities and knowledge centres are covered. When using Teams, correct channel design was vital. We almost never have just the General channel. Channels are created per customer, knowledge topic, report, job or assignment etc. In some cases standard Teams and workspace templates are activated via a self-service wizard.

Metadata. The designs include inherited, as well as auto classified, metadata to drive search, navigation, browse and R&D.

"Just right". If the breadth of a channel is too narrow, we end up with too many places to go to collaborate. If it's too wide, then conversations overlap, and threads get lost. This is what we refer to as the ‘Goldilocks’ effect where the trick is to design channels to be “just right”.

Death comes quickly to Teams, if it's not obvious where to collaborate or find what you need.

For instance, for conferences do we have a team per conference or a team for all conferences and a channel for each?

So this needs consultation then a binding decision - one way or the other.

Ad-hoc Teams? It also means we lock down or limit self created ad-hoc teams that will just sow confusion. If someone wants a Team they can easily check what Teams are in use already and then request one if needed.

Members only. When an out of the box Team is created, members have administrative rights and no one else even knows the Team and its library exist. This is a recipe for information accidents and duplication.

vs Organisational asset. So Teams Framework allows administrator rights to be limited while, for most Teams, adding permissions for all staff to see and search for the library content.

External guests? This used to be painful to setup and manage. Now customers can collaborate and share files securely through our Smart Guest Management App.

We have many case files - proposals, reports, projects, campaigns, knowledge showcases etc.

Lifecycle managed. We have a channel for each of these cases and, through our Apps, the ability to close the channel when the work is done. This removes clutter in Teams but allows the files to be secured in SharePoint, and disposed of by the R&D schedule.

Teams Framework powers collaboration and getting work done in 50+ New Zealand organisations. Its been a game changer for many through lockdowns and WFH. Contact us for more information.