Best Practice for replacing File Servers with Teams

layer9de 
So the first thing you need to do is create a governance board. CLEARLY define how this will be used BEFORE you move even one file. 

What we did was to create an org-wide team (Team_All) that has channels in it for each team and that has info that will be consumed by other departments. Those files are copied from the department's folders to the org-wide one via a Power Automate script.

Then each department gets their own departmental team with any number of channels that made sense to how that team organized their work. Only that team can see that content.

We also decided on a naming convention:
Team=Standing department
WF=Work Flow, cross departmental work-flow with people from different teams for sustained work
Proj=Project work with cross departmental staff that is temporary in nature
Cust=External Customers
Part=External Partners 

Lastly, the AH-HA that helped people make the mental leap from a file server to cloud storage was to sync folders to the person's computer via OneDrive and the sync button in a team's file structure. Once we do that, people just use File Explorer to access files from the cloud like as if it is a file share structure. They don't even know the difference since it presents as a folder in File Explorer. When people see that, it blows their minds and really helps them forget that it is cloud storage. Use the sync button, but definitely create a structure that is scalable and sustainable.

The end result was that users see in File Explorer a folder for the org-wide folders and then folders from their team and then folders from any of the other types of teams. It actually works really well and then they never have to open Teams to navigate files.

Hope that helps.