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Phase 2

Decisions & Design

The decisions a Microsoft 365 program has to make and document. Each topic surfaces the choices, names the trade-offs, and recommends a default — so the program can move forward with explicit decisions rather than implicit ones that show up later as drift.

What's in this phase​

  • Governance operating model — Forum composition, cadence, decision rights, RACI.
  • Roles and responsibilities — Brokers, site owners, information managers. Distributed vs central, with pros/cons.
  • Information architecture — Business-led vs functional / records hubs. Two-track model with movement patterns between them.
  • Permissions and access model — Members = Edit vs Contribute. Visitor philosophy. Targeted audit. Inheritance breaks. Entra ID groups.
  • External collaboration and guest strategy — B2B vs Teams Connect vs anonymous links. Expiration, sharing posture, default-internal.
  • Security, sensitivity labels, and DLP — File and container labels. Starter taxonomy (Public / Internal / Confidential / Restricted). DLP and conditional access.
  • Records, retention, and lifecycle — Generic policies vs specific labels. Per-app defaults, multi-stage retention, auto-application phasing, records hub architecture.
  • Teams strategy and lifecycle — Team types, channel strategy, lifecycle defaults, project Team archive / dispose, SharePoint retention behind teams.
  • OneDrive strategy — Personal workspace, departure handover, retention on leave, Known Folder Move, sharing patterns, quotas.
  • Copilot readiness and AI-era governance — Pre-Copilot data hygiene checklist, Restricted SharePoint Search, adoption phasing, ongoing AI governance.
  • Licensing decision brief — E3 vs E5 capability table, where E3 hits its ceiling, hybrid licensing patterns.
  • Bilingual / multi-language deployment — Where translation applies in M365, profile language behaviour, translation workflow.

When to read this​

After Foundations is shared and before rollout planning starts. Each topic is self-contained — work through them in any order that matches your team's agenda.