Today I was probably a little annoying for my “surroundings” but  I am lucky to have great colleagues who understand the importance of User adoption and the need for Guidelines when working on a platform with so many opportunities (and associated challenges).

What i did?

1. I disabled the ability to create Private Channels in Microsoft Teams.
2. I sent out a survey to all employees describing how Private Channels work and what guidelines apply to the use of Private Channels in our company.
3. When all employees, in the survey, have confirmed that they have read the information and understood the guidelines, I will re-enable Private Channels.

Need I say that the confirmations are already pouring in with the speed of light …?

If You need tips/examples on Best Practices for Private Channels i strongly recommend that you read the blog post “Teams Private Channels Best Practices” (by Dr. Nitin Paranjape).

If it does not work to provide information on current guidelines, then you may have to resort to the heavy artillery and create a Custom teams policy that governs who should have the right to create Private Channels, but hopefully (and usually) it is enough to provide information on a good and educational way.

Photo by Mark Duffel on Unsplash