#Microsoft365 #Office365 #MicrosoftTeams So an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but eat a bag of apples every day and you’ll most probably end up diabetic. Cause yes, too much of a good thing, simply isn’t a good thing. And yes, we love Microsoft Teams, but if you end up creating a Team every time the doorbell rings, you’ll end up right back in Outlook, in no time at all.

For previous posts in my #Microsoft365Challenge go to the index page.

DISCLAIMER:  I WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT OFFICE / MICROSOFT 365. CONTENT IS ACCURATE AT TIME OF PUBLICATION, HOWEVER UPDATES AND NEW ADDITIONS HAPPEN DAILY WHICH COULD CHANGE THE ACCURACY OR RELEVANCE. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN USING MY BLOGS AS GUIDELINES.

I actually don’t know…

That’s right – there is no correct formula. The only thing I can do is give you some guidelines to consider. At least it’s something to start with and believe me, if you don’t start saying no somewhere, this will not end well.

When would I create a Team?

When people answer yes on most of the following:

  1. Do you have Email / Skype for Business communications more than twice a week, on the same topics?
  2. Do you work together with a ‘closed’ group of people where permissions apply?
  3. Do you share documents with each other?
  4. Would you like to co-author documents?
  5. Does the nature of this Team / Project / Discipline require categorization or threading (history) of content / communication (so do you look for stuff again and are you currently struggling to find stuff in your current environment?)
  6. Does most of the content / communications require responses?
  7. You want to create a culture where people actually work together and achieve something?
  8. Do you use other websites & Apps as well as part of your daily functions, for example, OneNote, Planner, Stream, Power BI etc. that can be added to the Team to make your life easier.

Maybe not…

  • Oh ok, you only want an audience? So few people contribute, many people consume content? – That would be an Intranet / Communication Site.
  • You only share documents at specific frequencies with a group of people, no response or contribution required – OneDrive folder or separate SharePoint Team Site with a Flow that automatically notifies them when a new document is loaded.
  • It’s for short term “projects” like Team Building or Xmas party and you need to quickly gather information? Build a Microsoft Form.
  • You need approvals on documents and staging to different folders? OneDrive / SharePoint & Flow.

Take note that I said “maybe”. Because who am I to say you can’t, but promise me you’ll first think about it.

When is a Team too BIG?

Again, I don’t know. There’s no magic number. What I can say is start small (simple). If you’re introducing HR to Teams – don’t go build a Team for every process. Start with one Team and give the users a chance to get used to this. Then and only then, will they know what to ask for.

You can always ‘break’ this Team up and create separate Teams for each of the previously created Channels after a while. And with ‘while’ I mean a couple of weeks at most. A trial period so to speak. Don’t wait till there’s thousands of documents. Yes, you’ll have to “migrate” those separate folders across to the new Team – but that’s not so difficult. What will be difficult is trying to simplify chaos back into one Team because there’s too much noise across multiple Teams.

Pareto Principle

Apply this principle when it comes to relevance. If it’s a big Team and 80% of the content only applies to 20% of the people, then you should consider rather splitting the Team up.

Risk vs Relevance

Don’t complicate your Team environment (channels / folders / permissions) because out of a 1,000 documents shared a month, 5 of them are super high risk stuff. Remove the exceptions. Put it in a separate folder in OneDrive and share it with the smaller group from there, or create a separate Team specific for the high risk content that is shared with a specific group of people across Teams / Departments.

So as you can see, there’s no definite rules, but you need to consider a couple of things and start with basic ‘rules’. Change these as you go because your maturity will grow together with your system.

Purpose of this blog challenge:  I will write 365 blogs in 365 days around Microsoft 365. I did a similar challenge with Office 365, blogs can be found here. I won’t just be talking about the new Microsoft 365 subscription model. I will be sharing any news, tips and tricks around Office / Office 365 / Windows / Mobility and Security. And let’s not forget all the great new Apps & services available.  A lot of what I’ll share on Office and SharePoint will also be applicable to none “Office 365” versions.

You can also find me contributing to REgarding 365. I’m a member of a group of enthusiasts, sharing their stories, thoughts and opinions about Microsoft 365. Catch us at https://regarding365.com | @regarding365 on Twitter and regarding365 on YouTube