The Grinch Who Wrote Governance

The Grinch We Know

I’m willing to bet that we’ve all worked with a Grinch before. Their solution to technology adoption tends to be writing a massive bulk of documentation, defining cumbersome and unrealistic rules, and/or implementing strict controls, and removing access to entire swathes of the toolset. Where’s the fun in that? In my experience, the best governance is the kind that is living and breathing, the kind premised on guidance that allows the business to use tools and apps in a safe and productive way. The best governance is the kind that is largely imperceptible to the end user, and not perceived as an impediment to work, but rather as a shortcut to productivity. When written down, it would fit on a piece of paper. If no one reads or comprehends the guidelines laid out in a governance plan, what good is it doing?  

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that corporate governance is a big (and critical) thing. There are a lot of ins and outs, policies and procedures, unique business processes, and cultural intricacies to navigate. What I’m talking about here is the governance that enables our business users to use the available tools and technology in the best possible way. 

What is Governance?

For most employees, governance should be the fence that keeps us safe in the backyard. We can go out and enjoy the yard, but the fence keeps us from accidentally wandering out too far. It also keeps bad actors from creeping in.   

We can’t expect our business users to know every sensitivity label, retention policy, naming convention, or external collaboration rule that has been created by the Governance Committee. What we can do is use guided or even automated processes to make sure the correct policies and labels are used when certain criteria are met. Once we understand our core business scenarios, we can craft highly repeatable processes to reflect how work gets done. This kind of governance strategy leads users down the right path intuitively, without everyone having to become experts in corporate governance.  

How Can Guided Governance be Useful?

• If certain types of Teams and SharePoint sites shouldn’t have guests, then let’s make sure that when those types are provisioned, a sensitivity label is applied and the fence is up before mistakes are made.  

• Should Joy be allowed to create a 7th IT workspace? Probably not. Built-in processes can make sure official department names can only be used by the appropriate people or with approval.  

• Teams’ names are chaos so how about we ask requestors for a few easy pieces of metadata (❤️) that can be used as prefixes/suffixes in Team names, bringing consistency and better findability? 

• Should Teams be created with a single member? Most would say, probably not. Enforce membership rules are applied before Teams are created with ease. 

These are just a few examples of how Governance rules can be baked into a user-friendly request process. But before that happens, there must be a process! Power Automate and Power Apps, or even a simple but awesome Microsoft List can help you create a guided process for Team and Site provisioning.  

Then there’s Orchestry which can take you well beyond what Microsoft 365 can do and present the functionality in a beautiful and intuitive user interface.  

Instead of expecting the business to know the differences between team sites, communication sites, Planner, To-Do, if they need a Team or not, if there’s already an existing Team for what they need (the list goes on and on) … we just find out what they need to do and guide them through an intuitive Workspace request process.  

The process is “Admin-Approved, providing IT administrators the tools they need to wrap corporate governance around created workspaces. Orchestry becomes the user-friendly platform that IT and the whole business uses to ensure sites and Teams are safe, secure, and usable!  

Read our blog about the super easy Workspace provisioning process (only 3 steps!) using Orchestry, which the IT administrators are going to love and the end users will, no doubt, appreciate!

But Wait, There’s More!

This month Orchestry is diving into Governance! (Because nothing says “Happy Holidays” like Governance, right?) We’ll be sharing best practices, tips, and tricks that you can apply with or without 3rd party tools. 

But, if you’re already part of the ever-growing Orchestry community we’ll also show you how to make the most out of your Orchestry investment.   

Because 

Maybe, just maybe Governance isn’t a doc that’s a bore. 

Maybe Governance… perhaps… can be so much more!  

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