Microsoft 365 Governance
Microsoft 365 governance assessment checklist for leadership
A governance assessment should give leaders a clear view of ownership, risk, accountability, and the decisions required to improve Microsoft 365 operations.
This checklist helps executives, IT leaders, program managers, and governance stakeholders determine whether Microsoft 365 is being managed as an accountable business environment rather than a collection of disconnected tools.
1. Ownership and decision rights
- Is there an accountable owner for Microsoft 365 governance?
- Are service, security, records, privacy, and business responsibilities documented?
- Are approval and escalation paths clear?
- Can leaders identify who decides exceptions and risk acceptance?
2. Workspace provisioning and lifecycle
- Are Teams, SharePoint sites, groups, and other workspaces created through a controlled process?
- Are naming, ownership, purpose, and classification requirements defined?
- Are inactive or abandoned workspaces reviewed and retired?
- Are ownership changes handled when personnel leave or change roles?
3. Permissions and external sharing
- Are broad access, unique permissions, and guest access reviewed?
- Are external-sharing rules consistent with business need and information sensitivity?
- Are stale guests and anonymous links removed?
- Are site owners accountable for periodic access review?
4. Information architecture and content quality
- Can users find authoritative information efficiently?
- Are metadata, content types, navigation, and search practices consistent?
- Are duplicate, obsolete, and low-value records controlled?
- Are sensitive-content locations understood?
5. Policy and documentation
- Are policies, standards, procedures, and runbooks current?
- Do documents identify owners, review dates, approvals, and exceptions?
- Can administrators and support teams follow documented procedures?
- Do policies reflect the actual environment rather than an intended future state?
6. Security, privacy, records, and compliance coordination
- Are governance decisions coordinated across security, privacy, records, legal, and business stakeholders?
- Are retention, deletion, legal hold, and information-protection responsibilities understood?
- Are control gaps documented with owners and remediation dates?
- Are technical settings supported by operating procedures?
7. AI and Microsoft Copilot readiness
- Have oversharing and permission risks been assessed?
- Are acceptable-use and accountability expectations documented?
- Is the organization prepared to test with representative users and sensitive scenarios?
- Are training, support, success measures, and rollout decisions defined?
8. Measurement and continuous improvement
- Are governance risks and exceptions tracked?
- Are ownership, guest access, inactive workspaces, and policy reviews measured?
- Does leadership receive a recurring governance scorecard?
- Are improvement priorities tied to owners, due dates, and evidence?
What leadership should receive from the assessment
- An executive summary of the current governance posture
- A documented responsibility and decision-rights model
- Validated risks and control gaps
- Prioritized remediation recommendations
- A phased improvement roadmap
- Owners, dependencies, and target dates
- Measures for tracking progress and accountability
For a structured review, see the Microsoft 365 Governance Assessment or use the Microsoft 365 Governance Assessment Workbook.
Turn governance questions into an actionable improvement plan.
PPS provides fixed-scope Microsoft 365 governance assessments with documented findings, priorities, decision rights, and an implementation roadmap.