Launched March 14, 2017, as a competitor to Slack and integrated with Microsoft 365 services, Microsoft Teams is a collaboration platform that integrates tools to help teams within organizations conduct audio and video meetings, make and receive calls, create shared spaces using channels, instant messaging, and many other features.

Due to the rise in remote and hybrid work opportunities, organizations have adopted Teams because of its ease of use and simplicity in terms of organizing content. However, with its fast-rise claim to fame, Teams has also produced Teams sprawl.

With Microsoft Teams surpassing 320 million users worldwide, most organizations still lack robust management policies, leaving them vulnerable to sprawl and inefficiencies.

In this article, I interview three leading technology companies that work with Microsoft 365, specifically Microsoft Teams, and get insight into Teams sprawl from leading organizations Orchestry, Rencore, and BitTitan.

These technology companies offer unique perspectives on Teams sprawl and how their products and services are impacted by or manage Teams sprawl.

First, let’s discuss Microsoft Team sprawl in detail including its definition and causes.

What is Microsoft Teams Sprawl?

Orchestry states that Microsoft Teams sprawl refers to the uncontrolled proliferation of Teams within an organization, often resulting from a lack of governance over the creation of new Teams, which can lead to confusion, redundant or abandoned Teams, and wasted resources.

Teams sprawl also refers to the uncontrolled and often ungoverned creation of Microsoft Teams workspaces within an organization. This occurs when employees create Teams for projects, departments, or collaborations without centralized oversight. As a result, duplicate or abandoned Teams accumulate, leading to:

Redundant channels and duplicated efforts
Cluttered digital environments
Wasted licenses and storage resources

Michal Pisarek, CEO of Orchestry, explains that this lack of control starts with the fundamental openness of Microsoft 365, “Sprawl has long been a challenge for organizations, stemming from the open architecture of Microsoft 365 and insufficient investment in governance.”

Teams sprawl often starts quietly, as people create new workspaces for ad hoc projects. Over time, unmonitored growth, combined with limited governance, leads to repeated channels, misplaced files, and orphaned spaces, complicating collaboration. Let’s look at the underlying factors that drive it in the first place.

What Causes Teams Sprawl?

Due to its flexibility and ease of use, Teams can lead to unstructured growth if not properly managed. Additionally, several factors contribute to Teams sprawl:

Ease of Creation
Users can create new workspaces without IT intervention, which encourages the formation of temporary or duplicate Teams that may never be properly managed. As such, employees often create new Teams for every project without checking for existing channels. This leads to redundancy.
Lack of Governance
There’s not a consistent way to manage who can create a Team, how it’s named, or when it should be archived. Matthias Seidel, VP of Marketing at Rencore, states that “Governance is not only a matter of tools and processes but also very much a matter of end-user education.”

Organizations that lack clear guidelines on how Teams should be structured, managed, and archived, often struggle with inconsistent naming conventions, Teams without a designated owner, and lack of permissions management. Organizations that fail to set up a structured provisioning and lifecycle management framework typically find themselves dealing with Teams sprawl long after the issue has already escalated.

Increase in Teams Sprawl
BitTitan says they have observed a significant and ongoing increase in Teams sprawl, particularly as companies continue to migrate to Microsoft 365 or consolidate tenants during mergers and acquisitions.
Uncontrolled Creation of Teams

Teams’ self-service model allows users to quickly create Teams for projects, departments, collaborations, often without governance controls. This results in duplicate Teams created for the same purpose, abandoned Teams that were never actively used, and excess storage consumption and cluttered workspaces.
Duplicate or Abandoned Teams

Employees tend to create Teams for temporary projects, but these workspaces remain active indefinitely even after they are no longer needed. Over time this leads to multiple Teams covering the same topic, redundant conversations and files, and inactive Teams consuming storage and licenses. Pisarek states that "over 65% of workspaces remain inactive for more than 180 days and in more than 80% of organizations, over 10% of Teams are identified as duplicates or redundant.”
Hybrid Work Leading to Rapid, Unstructured Collaboration

The rise of remote and hybrid work has accelerated Microsoft Teams adoption, but also increased sprawl as employees create new workspaces without organizational oversight, leading to new Teams for every project, lack of visibility into existing Teams, and cross-departmental Teams with unclear ownership. Pisarek points out that this issue is becoming even more critical as organizations integrate AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot into their workflows: “The issue has gained increased attention recently due to its significant impact on AI initiatives within Microsoft 365, particularly Microsoft 365 Copilot.”

Hybrid or Remote Work
The accelerated adoption of Teams to support hybrid or remote work environments has also amplified this issue. Without clear policies, employees can create new teams for every project or task, contributing to a cluttered environment.
Consolidation Changes
As companies merge they bring their own Teams environments. Wadsworth notes that “Mid-to-large enterprises are especially prone to sprawl due to their complex structures and number of employees. Mergers and acquisitions often exacerbate the issue.” The integration of disparate Teams setups can lead to overlapping workspaces and data duplication.

Together, these factors, including easy workspace creation, lack of governance, abandoned Teams, hybrid collaboration trends, and complex consolidation scenarios, create a challenging environment for organizations of all types. With these causes in mind, let’s now explore who experiences the greatest impact from Teams sprawl.

Who Is Affected by Teams Sprawl?

Microsoft Teams sprawl affects organizations of all sizes and across various sectors and is not confined to large enterprises or highly regulated industries. Whether it’s a small company struggling to manage a growing number of workspaces or a large enterprise dealing with duplicate and abandoned Teams. Here are some examples:

Small and Mid-Sized Businesses (SMBs) Are Not Immune

It’s easy to assume that only large corporations face Teams sprawl, but even smaller businesses struggle with sprawl. Without clear governance frameworks, small companies often experience:
- Employees creating Teams for projects without proper oversight.
- Confusion due to a lack of naming conventions and structured permissions.
- IT teams managing sprawl manually, which becomes unsustainable as the company scales.
Matthias Seidel, VP of Marketing at Rencore, shares how even smaller companies feel the impact: “Teams sprawl is affecting organizations of all sizes and industries. Even our 40-person company struggled with it when rolling it out.”

Early Adopters
Early adopters now face seven or more years’ worth of accumulated data, often without governance strategies in place to manage the rapid expansion.
Enterprises Face Large-Scale Teams Management Challenges

For mid-to-large enterprises, the complexity of their operations magnifies the effects of Teams sprawl. With thousands of employees collaborating across different departments, organizations often deal with:
- Redundant Teams created for the same business function in different regions or departments.
- Inactive Teams accumulating over time, consuming unnecessary storage.
- Confusion over which Team to use, leading to productivity losses.
Aaron Wadsworth, General Manager at BitTitan, explains why larger enterprises are particularly vulnerable: “Mid-to-large enterprises are especially prone to sprawl due to their complex structures and number of employees. Mergers and acquisitions often exacerbate the issue.”
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Create Sprawl at Scale

One of the biggest triggers of Teams sprawl in enterprises is mergers and acquisitions (M&A). When companies consolidate Microsoft 365 environments, they often end up with:
- Duplicate Teams and channels from each organization’s pre-existing setup.
- Unclear ownership over legacy Teams, leading to abandoned workspaces.
- Security and compliance risks, as sensitive data gets migrated without proper access controls.
Wadsworth says: “We often see organizations migrate their Teams environments without addressing sprawl first, which leads to unnecessary duplication and clutter. Without a structured archiving policy, businesses carry over outdated Teams, making post-migration management even more challenging.”
Regulated Industries Face Compliance Risks

Industries with strict compliance and security requirements such as finance, healthcare, and legal, are at an even greater risk when Teams sprawl is left unmanaged. Without governance, organizations in these industries may experience:
- Regulatory violations due to improper data retention policies.
- Sensitive information being shared in the wrong Teams without proper access restrictions.
- Audit challenges, as IT struggles to track document histories across an excess of Teams.
Pisarek explains: “Effective governance isn’t just about reducing sprawl—it’s about maintaining security, compliance, and operational efficiency. Structured provisioning and lifecycle management help organizations, especially in regulated industries, keep control over their Teams environments while meeting compliance requirements.”

Industries and Organizations Most Affected by Teams Sprawl

Pisarek states that "sprawl affects most organizations, but its impact is particularly pronounced in industries centered on repeatable processes and projects." Sectors such as professional services, construction, and financial services are especially vulnerable to the challenges it presents, given their reliance on structured workflows and consistent project execution.

"We’ve seen Teams sprawl impact a wide variety of industries, but it tends to be most prominent in those with high levels of collaboration and compliance requirements," adds Wadsworth. For example, education institutions with distributed campuses and diverse user groups frequently struggle with sprawl as they adopt Teams for both academic and administrative purposes.

Mid-to-large enterprises are especially prone to sprawl due to their complex structures and large number of employees. Mergers and acquisitions in these companies often exacerbate the issue and the length of time they’ve been using Teams, as they consolidate multiple tenants into a single Microsoft 365 environment.

Wadsworth continues: "At BitTitan, we’ve also seen small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face similar challenges when they rapidly adopt Teams without fully understanding how to manage and organize their environment." He adds, "Regardless of industry or size, the common thread is the need for better governance and planning during migration and adoption processes—areas where we work closely with our customers to ensure success."

Teams sprawl is affecting organizations of all sizes and industries. Seidel explains, "We are a 40 people company and even we were struggling with Teams sprawl when rolling it out. In our experience, organizations north of 1,000 licensed Microsoft 365 users reach a point where they cannot handle this sprawl with their manual, hard-coded or Microsoft-based solutions."

Teams Sprawl and Governance

BitTitan strongly advises implementing governance and training frameworks to ensure a well-organized and effective Microsoft Teams environment. Here are some foundational frameworks we recommend for every organization:

Governance Framework
To ensure clarity and consistency, establish team creation policies that limit who can create new teams and define clear naming conventions. Implement lifecycle management policies to archive or delete inactive teams after a set period, reducing unnecessary clutter. Regularly review and update access controls to ensure that only authorized individuals have access to specific teams and channels, improving both security and efficiency. Additionally, establish content retention guidelines to define data retention and backup practices, ensuring compliance with organizational and regulatory requirements.
Training Framework
Introduce Teams best practices during onboarding to help new employees use the platform effectively. Provide role-specific guidance tailored to the needs of different departments, enabling users to maximize Teams' functionality in their daily workflows. Offer regular refresher training to educate employees on new Teams features and updated governance policies, ensuring ongoing engagement. Finally, provide self-service resources such as documentation, tutorials and FAQs to help employees independently find answers to common questions.
What Happens During Teams Migrations
During a migration, it’s common for teams, channels and files to duplicate as businesses consolidate data and collaboration tools from multiple tenants. If old or unused Teams aren't archived properly, this can lead to disorganization, inefficiencies and even security concerns.

Teams sprawl isn’t limited to everyday operations—its effects can grow even more complicated during mergers or tenant consolidations. When organizations unite multiple environments, an already tangled web of channels and duplicate workspaces becomes tougher to manage. Without a strategy to corral these redundant Teams, the end result is often a messy environment that slows down collaboration and creates security blind spots.

Best Practices to Help Reduce Teams Sprawl

While internal governance and clean-up efforts are key, third-party specialists can make the difference between continual firefighting and a truly organized system. Each solution offers a distinct angle on preventing or reducing Teams sprawl—some help shape provisioning rules before issues arise, others focus on uncovering hidden sprawl and waste, and still others streamline data migration so you don’t carry old clutter into new environments.

Develop a well-defined provisioning framework that harmonizes self-service capabilities with robust governance, enabling the timely and efficient creation of Teams while maintaining organizational oversight.
Implement structured workflows for archiving and lifecycle management to address Teams that are no longer actively utilized, ensuring efficient data retention and compliance.
Establish comprehensive protocols for managing active Teams, focusing on access control, security measures, and content governance to safeguard data integrity and operational efficiency.

Sprawl is manageable with the right approach. Here are the top three best practices we recommend:

Establish Governance Policies Early
The first step is setting clear policies for how teams should be created, managed and archived. This includes defining who can create new teams, establishing naming conventions and implementing lifecycle management to automatically archive or delete inactive teams. Establishing these rules early creates a foundation for a well-organized environment.
Perform Regular Audits and Cleanups
Periodic audits of your Teams environments are essential. Identify duplicate, inactive or unnecessary teams and channels, then consolidate or remove them. This helps maintain a streamlined and efficient collaboration platform, especially during or after a migration.
Educate and Empower Users
One of the most effective ways to prevent sprawl is to educate employees about the importance of maintaining an organized Teams environment. Provide training on best practices for using Teams, and encourage them to use existing channels instead of creating new ones unnecessarily.

In order to reduce sprawl in an existing tenant, a simple yet effective measure is looking at orphaned or inactive resources and users, e.g. teams and channels that were created around temporary projects that are not needed or even abandoned now. This usually has the nice side effect of saving license and storage costs.

Generally speaking, a sound lifecycle management of Teams resources prevents sprawl. This includes regulating the process of creating resources (provisioning) and removing resources when predefined rules apply.

Lastly, governance is not only a matter of tools and processes but also very much a matter of end-user education. When everyone is aware of naming conventions, access and privileges and sharing and permissions, sprawl is less likely to happen.

Are there any governance or training frameworks that all organizations should implement?
Obviously, being a tool provider ourselves, a governance tool is very helpful in many ways. Especially since educating the workforce is a lengthy and never-ending process, and Microsoft themselves provide little help in terms of tools that support IT departments.

How to Manage Teams Sprawl

While there are things you can do in your organization to mitigate Teams sprawl, this article covers several third-party solutions that can help you reduce sprawl and increase employee productivity.

Orchestry, Rencore, and BitTitan each address different aspects of Microsoft 365 governance, migration, and management. Here’s a breakdown of their key differences:

Orchestry is proactive in preventing Teams sprawl by controlling how and when Teams are created through templates, automation, and lifecycle policies.
Rencore is reactive and focuses on analyzing and cleaning up Teams sprawl after it has occurred by offering visibility, security, and compliance tools.
BitTitan does not focus on Teams sprawl but rather facilitates Teams migrations, helping businesses move their data efficiently across platforms or Microsoft 365 tenants.

Before diving into specific technologies, let’s take a step back and see how Orchestry, Rencore, and BitTitan contribute to managing Microsoft Teams. Each company addresses sprawl and lifecycle challenges from a different angle, yet all share a commitment to helping organizations maintain cleaner, more streamlined environments.

Company	Focus	Role in Managing Teams and Teams Sprawl
Orchestry	Governance and Automation for Microsoft 365 and Teams	Prevents Teams sprawl by offering Teams lifecycle management, governance automation, workspace provisioning, and intelligent reporting for proper oversight and control over Teams creation and usage.
Rencore	Microsoft 365 Governance and Compliance	Helps IT teams detect, analyze, and manage Teams sprawl through service inventory, compliance monitoring, and governance automation to ensure security and control over Microsoft 365 environments.
BitTitan	Cloud and Microsoft 365 Migrations	Focuses on migrating Teams data (e.g., chats, files, and permissions) between tenants or from other platforms to Microsoft 365 but does not provide governance or sprawl management features.

All three providers tackle a core set of sprawl pain points—governance, oversight, and tenant migrations—through distinct methods suited to an organization’s specific demands. By aligning the right solution with your environment’s requirements, you can head off needless clutter, keep collaboration running smoothly, and reclaim the time spent wrestling with redundant channels and abandoned workspaces.

Final Thoughts on Tackling Teams Data Sprawl

Preventing Teams sprawl calls for clear governance, routine oversight, and the right tools to fit your organization’s needs. Whether you prioritize proactive measures, post-creation cleanups, or streamlined data moves, a thoughtful approach keeps Teams environments lean and accessible. By combining best practices with solutions tailored to your growth and collaboration goals, your organization can stay focused on meaningful work instead of wrestling with redundant channels and abandoned workspaces.

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