200
Less Teams, streamlining collaboration and minimizing redundancy.
460
Appropriately governed Teams with clear roles and use cases.
Challenges
Implementing Microsoft Teams in 2020 marked a significant step forward for Albury City Council’s digital transformation. However, the absence of governance rules and structured processes around Teams creation led to unregulated growth:
- Over 600 Teams were created without guidelines, including duplicates, inactive Teams, and orphaned Teams.
- The platform was used for various purposes, from project collaboration to casual group chats. Albury City struggled to channel its employees’ enthusiasm for the platform into a streamlined, effective system.
- This unregulated growth caused inefficiencies and made it difficult to achieve clear governance, with Teams often misused or abandoned.
Solution
Recognizing the need for governance and structure, Albury City Council turned to Powell Governance for assistance. Powell introduced a robust solution focused on three pillars:
Governance templates: Powell Governance enabled Albury City Council to define and enforce clear use cases for Teams through customized templates tailored to specific needs like project collaboration, organizational tasks, and social planning.
Data-driven decisions: By leveraging Powell Governance reports, the Corporate Information team could identify inactive, orphaned, and unnecessary Teams, enabling a systematic cleanup process
Streamlined team creation: To ensure proper usage, the native Create Teams button was hidden, enforcing governance rules and allowing only approved Teams to be created via Powell’s templates.
Results & impact
Over three years, the Corporate Information team with the help of Powell Governance transformed Albury City Council’s use of Microsoft Teams:
- Efficiency gains: The number of Teams was reduced by 200, streamlining collaboration and minimizing redundancy.
- Purposeful growth: After the initial cleanup, Albury City experienced a controlled resurgence in Teams creation, resulting in 460 appropriately governed Teams with clear roles and use cases.
- Enhanced collaboration: Employees benefited from simplified access to project, collaboration, and social event templates, fostering a culture of effective and efficient teamwork.
“With Powell Governance, we not only reduced clutter but also empowered our teams to collaborate more effectively with tools designed for their specific needs.”
Maryanne Wiffen
Representative of Albury City Council
Next steps
Looking ahead, the Corporate Information team plans to leverage Powell’s Campaigns feature to further automate governance actions, applying these tools to ensure continued efficiency and adaptability.
Best practices & lessons learned
1. Template design
Defining clear use cases and creating tailored templates was pivotal to success.
2. User education
Embedding policies within templates helped train employees on best practices for Teams usage.
3. Governance enforcement
Removing the native Teams Create button ensured consistent adherence to governance policies.
Conclusion
Albury City Council’s journey showcases the transformative power of Powell’s solutions in addressing modern governance challenges. By streamlining their Teams environment and fostering purposeful collaboration, the Council is better equipped to serve its community with agility and precision.
