Two common needs for teams and channels are when groups need to have discussions and share resources because:

• They are in the same area of the organization
• They are in different parts of the organization but are working on the same project or toward the same goal

Organization

Teams can support updates and discussion for divisions and workgroups. For example, a unit may have an organization-wide team, and some directors and assistant directors may create teams specifically devoted to their own groups.

The ideal balance is to:

• Use a public channel in a large team for discussions that benefit from a wide audience.
• Use a separate smaller team or a private channel in the large team for discussions that need to happen among a smaller group.

Project

Teams can be a good fit for projects, particularly informal groups that assemble to achieve a particular task and may not need all the features or structure of heavyweight project collaboration tools. One approach could be to:

• Create a private team with all the people involved in the effort.
• If needed, add Planner, a OneNote notebook and any other helpful tools.
• Create public channels for discussion of specific topics.
• Create private channels for any subjects that would benefit from discussion by a subgroup.