Let me start by saying that I love new functionality that creates opportunities and solves concrete needs, BUT: Having a holistic perspective when managing your organization’s productivity platform is a puzzle with many pieces. In my opinion, there are mainly three pieces you need to fit together as soon as possible if you are to succeed in introducing new functionality into an organization. These pieces are:

• Security
• User Adoption
• Governance

Microsoft Teams is no exception to this. It is rather a very good example now that Private Channels is launched and anyone in your organization can start creating Private Channels.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are a number of scenarios where Private Channels can be good to use BUT then you first have to know how they work.”

If you are already using Microsoft Teams then I assume you already have the security in place. Then you have two more pieces that need to be handled. Having completed the necessary user adoption activities and defined governance and guidelines for the use of Private Channels in Microsoft Teams is a prerequisite for successfully utilizing this functionality. As I mentioned in my previous article “How to temporarily disable private channels“, you should immediately disable the ability to use Private Channels until you are ready to use it.

To give you an overview and to know if you are ready, I have compiled a number of links below to some good posts about Private Channels in Microsoft Teams.
Read through these posts to get an understanding of:

• Functionality
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Opportunities and limitations
• What you need to think about and plan for
• What you need to inform your users about

Useful posts

• Everything you need to know about Private Channels in Microsoft Teams
• What’s New in Microsoft Teams | Ignite 2019
• Why Teams’​ private channels are the enemies of modern teamwork
• How to get your users to “stay on the path” when it comes to Private channels
• How to temporarily disable private channels
• Private channels in Microsoft Teams are here but are you ready to release it in your organization yet?
• Teams Private Channels Best Practices
• Manage teams policies in Microsoft Teams

Of course, it is an option to release the functionality of Private channels to all users and hope that everything takes care of itself. But if you want to make sure that you do not, within a year or so, need to hire someone like me to help you clear up and solve the problems and challenges that have arisen then you should address this already today, you actually have no time to lose.