Managing Excess Teams Groups and Unused SharePoint Sites

One approach we've taken is to set policies that add a prefix to user-created groups. For example, if someone tries to make a group called 'Bob's Department', it would show up as 'Word Bob's Department'. We also delete any groups that haven't been active for more than 90 days.

For managing group creation, I find it helpful to use an approval process. Since Microsoft 365 doesn't have a built-in workflow, I disabled self-service group creation. I leverage a tool called AdminDroid for handling requests—users submit a request to create a group, and it gets approved before anything is set up. This way, we keep control over what's created.

To deal with unused Teams, make sure you enable expiration for those that aren't active. Additionally, get a list of all teams along with their last activity dates. This way, you can present the data to your business and demonstrate which teams are collecting dust. It's shocking that allowing users to create teams and groups is the default setting!

First off, it's crucial to prevent users from creating M365 groups on their own. You'll need to assess who owns these groups and have them review the content. If anything's valuable, back it up somewhere and delete the rest. We do a biannual inventory to keep things tidy—it's a bit of work initially, but once you're in the groove, it's easy to maintain.

Our IT team is responsible for creating Groups and Teams. They regularly audit these for usage, looking at file storage and posts. If a group isn’t utilized, it gets deleted. This keeps the workspace clean and organized.