Governance Planning, Intranets, and Microsoft 365

Produced by Steve Nathans-Kelly

At KMWorld 2021, Microsoft MVP Susan Hanley discussed how she develops effective governance plans for her clients. 

A key part of planning is to consider these questions, she said: What are we going to allow? What are we not going to allow? How are we going to provision sites and teams?

Hanley said she has created a workbook to help organizations step through the key decisions that they need to make to manage an effective Microsoft 365 environment and, by by extension, their intranet and Viva connections, as well.

Hanley updates her suggestions in her online workbook frequently because as things change in Microsoft 365, you get new knobs and dials to tweak in your governance plan. "This link will always be current. You'll always be able to get the most current release of that document. It's a workbook. So you can not only manage, you know, ask the questions, but there's a place to record the answer."

According to Hanley, "When you are creating a governance plan, the absolute worst thing you can do is create a document because no one will ever read it. If you want governance to be successful, you need to build it into the templates for sites and teams and make it part of the guidance you provide to content producers as they create their content."

Governance is also, of course, about monitoring what's going on, said Hanley. So in addition to planning, you also need to think about how you are going to keep track of all this and what's happening. "You want to focus on measures that matter to the organization so that you can ensure that your intranet remains successful over time."

Save the Date for KMWorld 2022—November 7–10, 2022—JW Marriott | Washington, DC!