Microsoft Teams sprawl is more common than you realize.
Most organizations just don't have the capacity to deal with it.
Many organizations chose quick Teams installation in order to accommodate a hybrid workplace. They chose this fast adoption instead of delaying rollout to create an effective governance plan and policy implementation.
The natural result of a hasty Microsoft Teams deployment is Microsoft Teams and SharePoint sprawl. In a previous article, we covered in detail what sprawl is, what causes it, and how to prevent it.
The 4 main consequences of a Microsoft Teams sprawl are:
Proper Microsoft Teams governance policies are essential. Without them, time and resources will be wasted throughout the organization, from the creation of a Team all the way to its retirement (or archival). Our research shows that in many organizations, resources are wasted on the following:
(Grab our guide on the 'Basics of MS Teams' to share with your end users!)
Unless you provide each staff member with Microsoft Teams app training before deploying the platform, there’s bound to be an initial period of trial and error when it comes to creating new Teams and Teams organization.
Consider the following:
Once Teams are created, team members will generally look for an existing team before creating a new one.
However, Microsoft Teams has limited out-of-the-box functionality, so unless someone is a member of a team, their searches often return no results.
Consider the following:
Your IT team will likely be required to research, create, run, and regularly update PowerShell scripts to identify issues and provide insights. Based on our research, each script takes roughly 45 minutes/month to maintain.
For Microsoft Teams Sprawl, your IT team must regularly audit and report on the following:
Depending on how you collect and process the data, you may need an individual script for each metric, meaning IT teams will spend five hours each month maintaining scripts for reporting.
Cleaning and content management is not rare event. It is an ongoing commitment. It requires the time and resources of your IT team regularly.
Your IT team must take action if Office 365 sees signs of sprawl. This includes merging, archiving, and deleting Teams and SharePoint organizations. Additionally, content owners must participate in content management.
A merger or acquisition could also require quick action to clean up the Microsoft 365 tenant.
Our research indicates that 5% of all Teams and SharePoint site collections created by end-users are duplicated for tenants that do not have a workspace provisioning automation or governance policies in place.
Consider the following:
This means that the IT team will spend 2.5 hours each month merging Teams and SharePoint site content. This is low since there are multiple things that cannot be easily merged and would require a third-party tool.
IT teams need to determine or update the ownership of content and assess when it is ready for the recycling bins. To do this, they must contact Teams and SharePoint site owners and members.
Consider the following:
In a tenant with 600 workspaces, manual communication will take 15 hours each year.
Administration and management of Teams and SharePoint sites takes time.
Consider the following:
Approximately 1,065 hours will be spent by members of your organization.
An organization with 600 workspaces and 1,000 team members has an average hourly staff cost of $60, this is a cost of nearly $65,000 per year!
(Not including the hefty M365 licenses)!
When end-users don't understand or cannot find workspaces that serve their needs they often turn to Shadow IT.
Shadow IT is usually a cloud-based software that end-users employ but is not authorized. They may choose this approach because they are familiar with the software or believe it better meets their objectives. From a security and compliance angle, Shadow IT can have serious consequences for an organization.
In a 2019 survey conducted by Forbes Insights and IBM, it was found that 46% of IT leaders believe that the use of unsanctioned software can make it impossible to protect an organization’s data. Furthermore, the same survey found that more than 1 in 5 organizations have experienced a cyber event related to Shadow IT.
A breach in the cloud can cost an organization of between $3.8 and $5.02 million. These costs are driven by the fact that cloud breaches often take advantage of configuration errors and undetected vulnerabilities in unsanctioned applications.
If team members are struggling with Microsoft Teams sprawl, it can lead to decreased productivity and efficiency.
The most common productivity issues we’ve seen are:
The most common productivity issues from MS Teams Sprawl.
If you’re using Microsoft Teams, everyone in your organization needs to be trained on it, even if it’s just the basics.
When it comes to basic training, there are many free resources available (such as our Teams 101 Guide). However, your HR department or IT team will still need to invest time researching and compiling these resources.
But general training may not be sufficient for your organization and you may need to create a specialized training program. Depending on the size of your organization, these processes can take weeks, and cost thousands in labor. More advanced instructor-led training costs anywhere from $100-300 per person per session.
And yet, your IT team will still get “What to use when” questions from everyone.
It is estimated that IT teams spend on average 3-5 hours per week responding to tech stack questions related to how to use specific software. Over the course of the year, that sums up to around 200 hours or $12,000 in labor.
Image: Over the course of the year, that sums up to around 200 hours or $12,000 in labor.
In a hybrid workplace where Microsoft Teams takes the role of a primary collaboration and communication tool, the ability to use it effectively becomes the linchpin to customer satisfaction and retention.
Miscommunications and misunderstandings will inevitably bleed into relationships with customers, and their satisfaction. Unfortunately, this will also lead to decreased retention and even loss of revenue!
Yes - Just make Teams easy for team members, using the following solutions
Microsoft Teams' advanced templates are a simple solution. You can pre-configure many aspects of advanced templates and customize them to meet the specific needs of different departments and business functions.
You can learn more about Orchestry’s Teams and SharePoint templates and available customizations and configurations in our blog.
To cut down on the amount of time end users spend looking for existing Teams and SharePoint sites, provide your end users with access to a comprehensive library of all workspaces available.
Unfortunately, there isn’t an out-of-the-box solution in Microsoft, however, Orchestry’s Workspace Directory can quickly put an end to the lack of transparency within your tenant.
To avoid bottlenecks and Shadow IT, you don’t want to strip users of their ability to create new workspaces when needed. But you can incorporate controls around the provisioning of new workspaces.
Orchestry offers full control over the provisioning process from start to finish and proactively eliminates sprawl.
See what the provisioning process with Orchestry looks like in action from the IT perspective, or learn about the Workspace Request Wizard to learn what the end user's new workspace request experience looks like!
The culprit of Microsoft Teams sprawl and the additional costs and wastage that just keep stacking up is the lack of a proactive governance plan and policy enforcement.
There is tremendous value in taking the time to develop a Microsoft 365 governance plan, even if it’s done retroactively, as it saves endless hours and dollars in the long run.
A Microsoft 365 governance platform like Orchestry can help you put your Microsoft 365 governance and everyday IT tasks on autopilot such as provisioning, lifecycle management, and more!
Running meaningful reports on Microsoft Teams usage and adoption and keeping tabs on the Microsoft Teams sprawling out of control takes time!
Orchestry allows your IT team to forego the traditional admin center hopping, running, and maintaining endless PowerShell scripts. With Orchestry’s Actionable Workspace Insights, you’ll be able to:
With Orchestry, your end users and IT teams will spend 92% less time creating, configuring, managing, archiving, merging, deleting, and reporting on the performance of Microsoft Teams and SharePoint sites.
For an organization with 1,000 members, there are likely:
Most organizations are not using Microsoft 365 to its full potential.
Orchestry makes Microsoft 365 simple for all users.
Orchestry is an adoption and governance platform that allows End Users, Workspace Owners, IT admins, and organizations to take full advantage of Microsoft 365.
To see Orchestry in action, request a demo!