Overcoming Microsoft 365 Governance Failures

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Most organizations believe Microsoft 365 governance fails because Microsoft 365 is complex.

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They are wrong. Complexity is just the camouflage.

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The real failure is human.

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Unclear accountability, siloed ownership, and leaders funding more admins instead of enforcing intent.

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Governance isn’t a pile of settings.

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It’s your organization’s intent, expressed as constraints,

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actually holding under pressure across identity, collaboration, data, and automation.

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In the next few minutes, this becomes obvious.

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What failure looks like, why it repeats, and the litmus test that exposes it instantly, then we fix the model.

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The foundational misunderstanding, governing tools versus governing systems.

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The foundational mistake is thinking Microsoft 365 is a set of tools you own.

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Teams, SharePoint, Exchange, Perview, Power Platform.

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So you assign tool owners, you build admin centers, you create a committee, you feel responsible,

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and then the tenant still drifts into chaos, because Microsoft 365 is not a suite of independent products.

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Architecturally, it is one platform.

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An interconnected set of services, sharing identity, authorization, and data services.

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The platform behaves like a distributed decision engine.

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Thousands of decisions happen continuously.

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Who can access what, from where, using which device, through which link, with which label,

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under which retention rule, with which connector?

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That distinction matters.

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Tool ownership is structurally incompatible with platform behavior.

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A team’s owner can’t govern teams without governing the SharePoint site behind it.

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The group behind that, the guests behind that, the sharing links behind that, and the compliance policies that interpret all of it.

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If you don’t govern the system, the system governs you.

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This is where people confuse administration with governance.

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Administration is setting configuration.

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Governance is enforcing constraints and accountability over time.

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Admin work is toggle the setting.

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Governance work is ensure the outcome stays true six months later, after reorganizations, exceptions, and new features.

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Administration is a moment, governance is a contract, and the uncomfortable truth is that correct configuration can still produce incorrect outcomes at scale.

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Because scale creates entropy, policies drift, exceptions accumulate, roles get granted temporarily and never removed.

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Work spaces get created for a project, and become permanent storage.

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Automation gets built as a quick win, and becomes a shadow integration touching payroll.

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This isn’t rare, it’s observable.

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You can spot the misunderstanding in how governance conversations sound.

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Two first governance sounds like this.

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We locked down teams creation.

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We enable the DLP policy.

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We rolled out sensitivity labels.

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We have conditional access.

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We assign someone as SharePoint admin.

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Those are configurations, not outcomes.

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System first governance sounds like this.

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We can create collaboration spaces quickly, but they expire unless a business owner renews them.

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External sharing exists, but it’s constrained by data classification and reviewed.

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Univlogged access is time-bound and audited. Automation can run, but only inside environments within forced boundaries.

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If a policy changes, we know which business processes break first.

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That last sentence is the difference between governance and theatre.

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And theatre is what most tenants run on.

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You can have policies, you can have dashboards, you can have pretty screenshots from admin portals.

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But if nobody owns the consequences, you are not governed, you are decorated.

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This is why the people problem isn’t about bad people.

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It’s about bad accountability models. You’ve created roles that optimize locally and fail globally.

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The teams admin optimizes teams.

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The SharePoint admin optimizes SharePoint.

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The purview specialist optimizes purview.

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The Power Platform maker optimizes delivery.

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Each person does their job.

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Each person is sincere.

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Each person is also generating entropy for someone else.

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Because the system doesn’t care about your org chart.

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The platform will happily accept conflicting intent.

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It will happily allow you to lock down one surface while leaving an adjacent surface wide open.

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It will happily let you stop users from creating teams while allowing them to create groups through another path.

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It will happily let you label documents while leaving links and governed.

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It will happily let you put DLP in place while users root around it with personal flows,

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email forwarding or external apps.

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This is the core misconception.

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Leaders think governance is risk mitigation implemented by IT.

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Governance is actually an operating model that the business participates in because the business creates the risk through daily behavior.

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I’d cannot govern human behavior with toggles.

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It can only create constraints that make safe behavior the default and unsafe behavior expensive.

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And this is why more tooling is the wrong reflex.

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When someone says we need a new tool to solve governance, what they often mean is

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we have no enforceable ownership model.

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So we’re hoping a dashboard will do it for us.

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Dashboards don’t enforce intent.

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People do.

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More specifically accountability does.

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The system needs an owner who can define intent, enforce defaults and run feedback loops when reality diverges.

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Not a committee, a governor, someone responsible for cross-service impact and the blast radius of decisions.

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So before we talk about identity drift, team sprawl, automation risk and compliance theater,

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you need this mental model locked in.

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Microsoft 365 governance is not a collection of tool settings.

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It is the discipline of enforcing organizational intent across a platform that makes decisions at scale.

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If you still treat it like tool ownership, the outcome is guaranteed.

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Conditional chaos.

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Microsoft 365 as a distributed decision engine.

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Microsoft 365 governance becomes easy to reason about once you stop treating it like software

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and start treating it like a machine.

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A machine that makes decisions continuously.

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And those decisions are not made by teams or SharePoint or PerView as separate things.

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They’re made by the same underlying control plane expressed through different surfaces.

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This is the uncomfortable truth.

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Microsoft 365 is a distributed decision engine.

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It takes identity, policy, device state and context and compiles them into an authorization outcome.

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Allow, block, encrypt, label, retain, audit, share, invite, expire, elevate.

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Every click triggers a decision.

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Every link triggers a decision.

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Every background sync triggers a decision.

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And your tenant is basically a constantly updating rule set that determines what those decisions will be.

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Not what you intended, what you actually configured.

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That distinction matters.

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Because most organizations treat identity as a supporting feature.

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We need entra, so people can sign in.

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Wrong frame.

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Identity is the primary control plane.

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It’s the root of the authorization graph.

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And in practice, everything you call governance is downstream of identity decisions.

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Who exists?

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What they can do?

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What they can access?

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What they can share?

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And what they can automate?

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If you want to understand why governance failures scale so reliably start here.

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Identity is not a directory.

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It is an authorization compiler.

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It takes principles.

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Users, groups, guests, service principles, managed identities.

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Then applies policies and role assignments.

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Then produces access decisions across the platform.

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The compiler doesn’t care why you granted a role.

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It doesn’t care that it was temporary.

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It doesn’t care that someone asked nicely, or that a project was urgent,

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or that the help desk was overwhelmed.

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It compiles and it executes.

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Now, layer the next reality on top.

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Authorization is not a list.

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It’s a graph.

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Users connect to groups.

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Groups connect to teams and SharePoint sites.

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Sites connect to files.

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Files connect to labels.

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Labels connect to encryption and DLP rules.

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Apps connect to permissions.

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Permissions connect to service principles.

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Service principles connect to automation.

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Automation connects to data sources.

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Data sources connect back to the same identities.

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Everything is connected.

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So when someone changes one small setting, they are not changing a toggle.

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They are changing the shape of an authorization graph.

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They are changing how the compiler behaves.

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This is why local optimization creates global fragility.

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A team’s admin tightening creation controls might feel like governance.

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But if group creation still exists elsewhere,

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you’ve just moved the sprawl to a new doorway.

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A pervue person rolling out sensitivity labels might feel like control.

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But if sharing links remain permissive, labels become taxonomy theater.

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A power platform maker building a flow might feel like productivity.

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But if connectors traverse data boundaries without enforcement,

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you’ve created an exfiltration pipeline with a friendly UI.

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Nobody did anything wrong.

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They did something local.

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The system failed globally.

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This is why the platform behaves like entropy management.

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Every exception you approve becomes a permanent rule unless you actively remove it.

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Every privileged role granted for speed becomes a standing permission

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unless you design it to expire.

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Every workspace created just for this project becomes a long-lived data container

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unless you enforce life cycle by default.

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Exceptions accumulate.

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Intent fades.

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And over time, your deterministic security model becomes a probabilistic one.

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You stop being able to predict outcomes from design.

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You start hoping the right policy applies in the right place at the right moment.

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Hope is not a control.

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This is also why collaboration surfaces are rappers around the same graph.

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Teams is not chat.

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Its identity plus group membership plus a SharePoint site plus an exchange mailbox

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plus a permission model that inherits and drifts.

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SharePoint is not storage.

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It is policy surface area with inheritance chains and link-based access

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that can outrun your assumptions.

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One drive is not personal.

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It becomes operational storage because people optimize for speed

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and the platform makes it easy.

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The engine does exactly what it was built to do, reduce friction.

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If you don’t define safe defaults, the system will default to convenience

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and convenience always wins in the short term.

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Until audit, incident response or copilot grounding turns convenience sprawl

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into enterprise wide blast radius.

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So when leaders ask why can’t we just assign tool owners and be done?

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Because the system isn’t organized by your tools.

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It’s organized by decisions.

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And if you don’t govern the decision engine as a whole, you aren’t governing anything.

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You are just decorating one portal at a time.

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The org chart problem fragmented ownership creates conditional chaos.

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Now take that decision engine and overlay a typical org chart on top of it.

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This is where the failure becomes predictable.

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Most tenants are owned like this.

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Someone owns teams.

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Someone else owns SharePoint, a security person owns conditional access,

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a compliance person owns PerView,

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and a business unit owns Power Platform Makers

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because they want speed without IT tickets.

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It looks balanced on paper.

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It looks like coverage.

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In reality, it is fractured ownership wrapped around a single system.

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So each role optimizes locally.

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And because they are optimizing locally,

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they create global contradictions that nobody can resolve

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because nobody is accountable for the end-to-end outcome.

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This is conditional chaos, a tenant full of conditions that made sense in isolation

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but collide in production.

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Here’s what most people miss.

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The platform doesn’t implement your org chart.

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It implements the sum of your policies.

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And the sum of your policies is usually incoherent

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because the org chart is incoherent.

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The team’s person wants self-service

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because adoption dies when everything is ticket-based.

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So they loosen creation or they create an exception pathway.

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Good intent.

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The SharePoint person wants containment

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because permission inheritance is fragile

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and sprawl turns search into noise.

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So they lock down sharing or clamp down on-site creation.

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Also, good intent.

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The identity person wants fewer incidents

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so they tighten conditional access, enforce MFA

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and reduce legacy or parts.

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Again, good intent.

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The purview person needs audit readiness

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so they roll out labels, DLP, retention.

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Still good intent.

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Now watch what happens when those intents collide.

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Users can create a team but external sharing breaks

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because the underlying SharePoint site inherits a policy

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that the team’s admin didn’t know existed.

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Users can’t create a team

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so they create a Microsoft 365 group through another surface

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because your lockdown was a portal-specific block,

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not a system constrained.

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DLP triggers an outlook and block sending.

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So users root around it by uploading

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to a personal one drive and sending a link

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because link governance didn’t get the same enforcement.

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Conditional access blocks a flow run

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because it sees a risky sign-in context

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so the business process silently stalls

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and the maker blames power automate being unreliable,

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not your policy graph.

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This is why government looking tenants still fail audits.

246
00:11:14,780 –> 00:11:15,980
The settings exist.

247
00:11:15,980 –> 00:11:17,740
The system outcomes don’t

248
00:11:17,740 –> 00:11:19,700
and because ownership is fragmented,

249
00:11:19,700 –> 00:11:21,780
the default response becomes predictable.

250
00:11:21,780 –> 00:11:24,620
Not my tool, which is just a polite way of saying,

251
00:11:24,620 –> 00:11:25,980
not my risk.

252
00:11:25,980 –> 00:11:27,820
Over time, that becomes your culture.

253
00:11:27,820 –> 00:11:29,940
The team’s team owns user experience.

254
00:11:29,940 –> 00:11:31,540
The security team owns risk.

255
00:11:31,540 –> 00:11:32,900
The compliance team owns audits.

256
00:11:32,900 –> 00:11:34,860
The power platform team owns delivery.

257
00:11:34,860 –> 00:11:36,380
Nobody owns the system behavior

258
00:11:36,380 –> 00:11:38,580
so the system behaves like any unowned system.

259
00:11:38,580 –> 00:11:39,660
It drifts.

260
00:11:39,660 –> 00:11:42,020
This is also how committees become entropy sinks

261
00:11:42,020 –> 00:11:43,980
because the organization notices the pain

262
00:11:43,980 –> 00:11:45,460
so it forms a governance committee.

263
00:11:45,460 –> 00:11:47,340
Then the committee becomes a weekly meeting

264
00:11:47,340 –> 00:11:49,580
where each silo reports their local status

265
00:11:49,580 –> 00:11:52,860
and nobody can actually decide anything cross-service

266
00:11:52,860 –> 00:11:54,660
because decision authority is distributed

267
00:11:54,660 –> 00:11:56,220
but accountability is not.

268
00:11:56,220 –> 00:11:57,300
So exceptions pile up.

269
00:11:57,300 –> 00:11:59,700
The committee approves them because people need to work

270
00:11:59,700 –> 00:12:01,700
and you convert more and more of your governance

271
00:12:01,700 –> 00:12:02,940
into exception management.

272
00:12:02,940 –> 00:12:03,860
That is not governance.

273
00:12:03,860 –> 00:12:05,700
That is slow motion surrender.

274
00:12:05,700 –> 00:12:07,580
You can diagnose this problem instantly

275
00:12:07,580 –> 00:12:10,300
by listening for the handoffs in your incident reviews.

276
00:12:10,300 –> 00:12:11,820
When that sharing incident happened,

277
00:12:11,820 –> 00:12:13,500
we thought it was teams.

278
00:12:13,500 –> 00:12:15,340
It was actually SharePoint.

279
00:12:15,340 –> 00:12:17,460
No, it was identity.

280
00:12:17,460 –> 00:12:20,500
Wait, it was a sensitivity label behavior.

281
00:12:20,500 –> 00:12:22,180
It was a power automate connector.

282
00:12:22,180 –> 00:12:23,620
That conversation isn’t collaboration.

283
00:12:23,620 –> 00:12:25,300
It’s a distributed liability model

284
00:12:25,300 –> 00:12:26,420
and here’s the quiet part.

285
00:12:26,420 –> 00:12:28,260
The system rewards this behavior.

286
00:12:28,260 –> 00:12:30,660
Each team can declare success by their own metrics.

287
00:12:30,660 –> 00:12:31,940
Teams adoption is up.

288
00:12:31,940 –> 00:12:33,700
SharePoint sites are compliant.

289
00:12:33,700 –> 00:12:35,340
Conditional access coverage is high.

290
00:12:35,340 –> 00:12:36,340
Labels are deployed.

291
00:12:36,340 –> 00:12:37,780
Flows are delivering value.

292
00:12:37,780 –> 00:12:39,780
Meanwhile, the tenant’s real estate is

293
00:12:39,780 –> 00:12:41,980
oversharing, privilege creep,

294
00:12:41,980 –> 00:12:45,780
orphaned work spaces, undocumented automation and compliance

295
00:12:45,780 –> 00:12:47,420
that cannot be proven end to end.

296
00:12:47,420 –> 00:12:49,500
This is why board level leaders keep hearing.

297
00:12:49,500 –> 00:12:50,700
We need more people.

298
00:12:50,700 –> 00:12:51,220
They don’t.

299
00:12:51,220 –> 00:12:53,580
They need an accountability model that matches the platform.

300
00:12:53,580 –> 00:12:55,300
One person or one accountable function

301
00:12:55,300 –> 00:12:58,340
must own cross service outcomes, not every setting outcomes.

302
00:12:58,340 –> 00:12:59,780
Because without that, every change

303
00:12:59,780 –> 00:13:02,220
becomes a political negotiation between two loaners

304
00:13:02,220 –> 00:13:05,100
and the decision engine keeps doing what decision engines do

305
00:13:05,100 –> 00:13:07,100
when intent isn’t enforced.

306
00:13:07,100 –> 00:13:09,140
It compiles whatever you gave it.

307
00:13:09,140 –> 00:13:10,820
And it makes you live with the result.

308
00:13:10,820 –> 00:13:12,820
Now that the org chart problem is clear,

309
00:13:12,820 –> 00:13:15,220
you can zoom in on the first recurring failure pattern

310
00:13:15,220 –> 00:13:16,620
that this model creates.

311
00:13:16,620 –> 00:13:18,780
Identity blind spots.

312
00:13:18,780 –> 00:13:20,980
Failure pattern one, identity blind spot.

313
00:13:20,980 –> 00:13:22,900
Identity blind spot is the first failure pattern

314
00:13:22,900 –> 00:13:25,300
because it’s the one that quietly poisons everything else.

315
00:13:25,300 –> 00:13:29,180
If you don’t control identity, you don’t control collaboration.

316
00:13:29,180 –> 00:13:30,660
You don’t control data access.

317
00:13:30,660 –> 00:13:31,780
You don’t control automation.

318
00:13:31,780 –> 00:13:32,900
You’re just watching symptoms.

319
00:13:32,900 –> 00:13:34,580
This failure usually starts with something

320
00:13:34,580 –> 00:13:36,220
that sounds reasonable.

321
00:13:36,220 –> 00:13:37,540
We need to move fast.

322
00:13:37,540 –> 00:13:39,620
So someone grants a role that feels small

323
00:13:39,620 –> 00:13:41,500
or they grant a role that feels temporary

324
00:13:41,500 –> 00:13:45,380
or they grant global administrator because it’s just easier

325
00:13:45,380 –> 00:13:47,060
and then they never take it back.

326
00:13:47,060 –> 00:13:48,220
That’s the blind spot.

327
00:13:48,220 –> 00:13:50,740
Organizations treat enter roles as job titles

328
00:13:50,740 –> 00:13:51,980
instead of blast radius.

329
00:13:51,980 –> 00:13:54,460
They treat privileges as operational convenience

330
00:13:54,460 –> 00:13:56,260
instead of risk acceptance.

331
00:13:56,260 –> 00:13:58,340
They treat directory objects as static

332
00:13:58,340 –> 00:14:00,340
when the platform treats them as live inputs

333
00:14:00,340 –> 00:14:01,380
to a decision engine.

334
00:14:01,380 –> 00:14:03,180
In real tenants, you see the same sequence.

335
00:14:03,180 –> 00:14:05,100
First, misscoped roles.

336
00:14:05,100 –> 00:14:07,180
A help desk engineer gets user administrator

337
00:14:07,180 –> 00:14:09,020
because password resets are noisy.

338
00:14:09,020 –> 00:14:10,900
A team’s admin gets privileged access

339
00:14:10,900 –> 00:14:13,500
they didn’t actually need because team’s drags sharepoint

340
00:14:13,500 –> 00:14:14,100
behind it.

341
00:14:14,100 –> 00:14:16,620
A security engineer gets multiple admin roles

342
00:14:16,620 –> 00:14:18,460
just while we sort this out.

343
00:14:18,460 –> 00:14:20,580
An automation developer gets app permissions

344
00:14:20,580 –> 00:14:24,060
that bypass user constraints because the flow needs to run.

345
00:14:24,060 –> 00:14:25,580
Second, standing privilege.

346
00:14:25,580 –> 00:14:28,340
The access remains because removing it is work

347
00:14:28,340 –> 00:14:30,780
and work creates friction and friction creates tickets

348
00:14:30,780 –> 00:14:32,180
and tickets create escalation.

349
00:14:32,180 –> 00:14:34,820
So the path of least resistance becomes leave it.

350
00:14:34,820 –> 00:14:37,020
Third, no entitlement review cadence.

351
00:14:37,020 –> 00:14:38,940
The tenant has no rhythm where someone asks,

352
00:14:38,940 –> 00:14:40,660
who still needs this and why?

353
00:14:40,660 –> 00:14:42,380
Not as a quarterly compliance scramble.

354
00:14:42,380 –> 00:14:43,700
As a normal operational loop,

355
00:14:43,700 –> 00:14:45,420
the absence of cadence is the breach.

356
00:14:45,420 –> 00:14:46,860
Everything else is just timing.

357
00:14:46,860 –> 00:14:48,540
Fourth, no blast radius thinking.

358
00:14:48,540 –> 00:14:50,580
Leaders and admins act like a role assignment

359
00:14:50,580 –> 00:14:51,900
is scope to one tool.

360
00:14:51,900 –> 00:14:52,740
It isn’t.

361
00:14:52,740 –> 00:14:54,860
One intra role change can alter behavior

362
00:14:54,860 –> 00:14:57,500
across multiple services because the graph is shared.

363
00:14:57,500 –> 00:14:59,300
The platform doesn’t implement team’s admin

364
00:14:59,300 –> 00:15:00,260
as a single surface.

365
00:15:00,260 –> 00:15:03,060
It implements rights that often cascade into exchange,

366
00:15:03,060 –> 00:15:05,420
sharepoint, app consent, group management

367
00:15:05,420 –> 00:15:06,700
and external access.

368
00:15:06,700 –> 00:15:08,620
And here’s the part nobody likes saying out loud.

369
00:15:08,620 –> 00:15:10,020
Once you allow this to happen,

370
00:15:10,020 –> 00:15:11,740
your governance becomes probabilistic,

371
00:15:11,740 –> 00:15:13,580
not because entry is unreliable

372
00:15:13,580 –> 00:15:15,060
because your tenant is now governed

373
00:15:15,060 –> 00:15:17,860
by historical accidents who asked for access,

374
00:15:17,860 –> 00:15:20,180
who was on call that day, which admin granted it.

375
00:15:20,180 –> 00:15:22,140
Whether anyone remembered to remove it,

376
00:15:22,140 –> 00:15:24,660
whether the person left the company before someone noticed,

377
00:15:24,660 –> 00:15:26,940
that’s not a security model, that’s luck.

378
00:15:26,940 –> 00:15:29,180
Global admin delegation is the purest example.

379
00:15:29,180 –> 00:15:30,980
It’s the role you grant when you don’t want to think.

380
00:15:30,980 –> 00:15:33,620
And organizations don’t grant it because they’re reckless.

381
00:15:33,620 –> 00:15:36,100
They granted because the accountability model is broken.

382
00:15:36,100 –> 00:15:37,420
The business wants urgency.

383
00:15:37,420 –> 00:15:39,460
It wants fewer escalations.

384
00:15:39,460 –> 00:15:41,620
Nobody wants to own the risk explicitly.

385
00:15:41,620 –> 00:15:44,580
So global admin becomes the default, get it done button.

386
00:15:44,580 –> 00:15:46,340
And that decision doesn’t stay contained.

387
00:15:46,340 –> 00:15:47,340
It becomes cultural.

388
00:15:47,340 –> 00:15:48,860
The next time something is blocked,

389
00:15:48,860 –> 00:15:51,180
people don’t ask what constraint exists and why,

390
00:15:51,180 –> 00:15:53,260
they ask who can bypass it.

391
00:15:53,260 –> 00:15:54,420
The bypass becomes normal.

392
00:15:54,420 –> 00:15:56,020
The exception becomes policy.

393
00:15:56,020 –> 00:15:57,420
The policy becomes theater.

394
00:15:57,420 –> 00:15:59,780
Now add guests and external collaboration.

395
00:15:59,780 –> 00:16:03,340
Identity blind spot is where external access posture goes to die.

396
00:16:03,340 –> 00:16:04,620
Guests accumulate.

397
00:16:04,620 –> 00:16:05,980
Old vendors remain.

398
00:16:05,980 –> 00:16:08,660
External users get added to groups that were never designed

399
00:16:08,660 –> 00:16:09,540
to include them.

400
00:16:09,540 –> 00:16:11,020
B2B settings drift.

401
00:16:11,020 –> 00:16:12,860
App registrations proliferate.

402
00:16:12,860 –> 00:16:14,980
Service principles become permanent fixtures

403
00:16:14,980 –> 00:16:17,780
with permissions nobody can explain six months later.

404
00:16:17,780 –> 00:16:20,820
And if you think that’s rare, remember the platform incentives.

405
00:16:20,820 –> 00:16:22,500
Collaboration drives growth.

406
00:16:22,500 –> 00:16:24,580
External sharing is frictionless by design.

407
00:16:24,580 –> 00:16:26,300
App integration is easy by design.

408
00:16:26,300 –> 00:16:27,060
That’s the product.

409
00:16:27,060 –> 00:16:28,380
The governance is your job.

410
00:16:28,380 –> 00:16:31,260
So the identity blind spot is not misconfiguration.

411
00:16:31,260 –> 00:16:32,540
It’s a design omission.

412
00:16:32,540 –> 00:16:34,620
You designed for convenience, then asked policy

413
00:16:34,620 –> 00:16:35,780
to clean it up afterward.

414
00:16:35,780 –> 00:16:37,780
Policy can’t clean up identity sprawl.

415
00:16:37,780 –> 00:16:39,260
It can only react to it.

416
00:16:39,260 –> 00:16:41,180
This is where the litmus test becomes useful,

417
00:16:41,180 –> 00:16:42,740
even inside technical teams.

418
00:16:42,740 –> 00:16:43,740
Ask a simple question.

419
00:16:43,740 –> 00:16:46,940
If we remove this role assignment today, what breaks first?

420
00:16:46,940 –> 00:16:47,900
And how would we know?

421
00:16:47,900 –> 00:16:50,900
If the answer is we’d have to try it, you have no observability.

422
00:16:50,900 –> 00:16:53,900
If the answer is it only affects teams, you have no graph awareness.

423
00:16:53,900 –> 00:16:55,620
If the answer is we can’t remove it

424
00:16:55,620 –> 00:16:59,220
because nobody knows what it’s for, you have already lost control.

425
00:16:59,220 –> 00:17:00,380
The fix is not heroics.

426
00:17:00,380 –> 00:17:03,300
It’s enforcing identity intent as an operating model.

427
00:17:03,300 –> 00:17:04,460
Time bound privilege.

428
00:17:04,460 –> 00:17:07,580
Explosive sponsorship, regular access reviews as routine

429
00:17:07,580 –> 00:17:10,100
and blast radius reasoning as a required skill.

430
00:17:10,100 –> 00:17:11,540
Because identity is the root surface.

431
00:17:11,540 –> 00:17:13,940
And blind spots at the root never stay small.

432
00:17:13,940 –> 00:17:16,940
They just spread into everything you thought was collaboration.

433
00:17:16,940 –> 00:17:19,860
Why collaboration is an information flow, not a feature set?

434
00:17:19,860 –> 00:17:22,700
Once identity drifts, collaboration doesn’t just get messy.

435
00:17:22,700 –> 00:17:23,860
It gets dangerous.

436
00:17:23,860 –> 00:17:28,380
Because in Microsoft 365, collaboration is not a tool choice.

437
00:17:28,380 –> 00:17:30,260
It’s an information movement system.

438
00:17:30,260 –> 00:17:32,580
And every time leadership treats it like a feature set,

439
00:17:32,580 –> 00:17:34,780
teams here share point there, one drive somewhere else.

440
00:17:34,780 –> 00:17:37,020
They are missing what the platform is actually doing.

441
00:17:37,020 –> 00:17:39,620
Collaboration is the movement of information through time.

442
00:17:39,620 –> 00:17:43,380
Create share, co-author, search, export, retain, delete.

443
00:17:43,380 –> 00:17:45,180
And if you don’t govern that flow end to end,

444
00:17:45,180 –> 00:17:46,900
your tenant will invent its own flow.

445
00:17:46,900 –> 00:17:48,460
Users will root around friction.

446
00:17:48,460 –> 00:17:50,460
Data will settle where it shouldn’t.

447
00:17:50,460 –> 00:17:52,700
And your controls will apply inconsistently

448
00:17:52,700 –> 00:17:55,980
because you govern surfaces, not movement.

449
00:17:55,980 –> 00:17:57,580
Start with the biggest misunderstanding.

450
00:17:57,580 –> 00:17:59,100
Teams, teams is not a chat app.

451
00:17:59,100 –> 00:18:00,940
It is a container that binds identity,

452
00:18:00,940 –> 00:18:03,380
permissions and storage into a workspace.

453
00:18:03,380 –> 00:18:05,900
Behind one team is a Microsoft 365 group.

454
00:18:05,900 –> 00:18:08,580
Behind that group is membership, owners and guests.

455
00:18:08,580 –> 00:18:10,300
Behind that team is a share point site

456
00:18:10,300 –> 00:18:11,700
where the files actually live.

457
00:18:11,700 –> 00:18:14,300
Often an exchange mailbox, sometimes a planner plan,

458
00:18:14,300 –> 00:18:16,740
sometimes a one note, and always a permission model

459
00:18:16,740 –> 00:18:18,260
that inherits and drifts.

460
00:18:18,260 –> 00:18:20,140
So when someone says we govern teams,

461
00:18:20,140 –> 00:18:21,900
the only honest response is which part?

462
00:18:21,900 –> 00:18:23,100
Do you govern creation?

463
00:18:23,100 –> 00:18:24,940
Do you govern ownership continuity?

464
00:18:24,940 –> 00:18:26,180
Do you govern guest access?

465
00:18:26,180 –> 00:18:28,500
Do you govern sharing links in the share point site

466
00:18:28,500 –> 00:18:29,740
that teams created?

467
00:18:29,740 –> 00:18:31,380
Do you govern the underlying groups,

468
00:18:31,380 –> 00:18:32,860
sprawl and nested membership?

469
00:18:32,860 –> 00:18:34,740
Do you govern retention and e-discovery

470
00:18:34,740 –> 00:18:37,180
against the content that’s now spread across chat,

471
00:18:37,180 –> 00:18:38,660
channel messages and documents?

472
00:18:38,660 –> 00:18:40,100
Because teams is just a front door.

473
00:18:40,100 –> 00:18:41,700
The data lives in the house behind it.

474
00:18:41,700 –> 00:18:43,740
And most organizations only lock the front door

475
00:18:43,740 –> 00:18:45,500
while leaving the back windows open.

476
00:18:45,500 –> 00:18:46,980
Then there’s share point.

477
00:18:46,980 –> 00:18:48,780
Share point is not storage.

478
00:18:48,780 –> 00:18:51,740
It is a policy surface area with inheritance chains.

479
00:18:51,740 –> 00:18:53,260
If you don’t understand inheritance,

480
00:18:53,260 –> 00:18:54,820
you don’t understand share point.

481
00:18:54,820 –> 00:18:56,220
And if you don’t understand share point,

482
00:18:56,220 –> 00:18:58,940
you don’t understand collaboration in Microsoft 365.

483
00:18:58,940 –> 00:19:00,580
Permissions in share point drift

484
00:19:00,580 –> 00:19:03,580
because people change roles, projects change scope

485
00:19:03,580 –> 00:19:05,860
and temporary access becomes normal access.

486
00:19:05,860 –> 00:19:08,660
Site owners grant permissions because they’re trying to work.

487
00:19:08,660 –> 00:19:11,020
And the platform makes it easy to do the wrong thing quickly.

488
00:19:11,020 –> 00:19:12,140
That’s not a user problem.

489
00:19:12,140 –> 00:19:13,380
That is a design reality.

490
00:19:13,380 –> 00:19:14,500
Now add sharing links.

491
00:19:14,500 –> 00:19:15,820
Sharing links are not permissions.

492
00:19:15,820 –> 00:19:18,260
They are bypass tokens.

493
00:19:18,260 –> 00:19:20,620
A link can outrun your group model.

494
00:19:20,620 –> 00:19:21,900
It can outlive your intent.

495
00:19:21,900 –> 00:19:22,860
It can be forwarded.

496
00:19:22,860 –> 00:19:23,780
It can be embedded.

497
00:19:23,780 –> 00:19:26,420
It can become the de facto access mechanism

498
00:19:26,420 –> 00:19:28,740
because it’s faster than requesting membership.

499
00:19:28,740 –> 00:19:31,180
And once links become the dominant access pattern,

500
00:19:31,180 –> 00:19:33,140
your governance posture becomes a rumor.

501
00:19:33,140 –> 00:19:35,620
People think they know who has access, they don’t.

502
00:19:35,620 –> 00:19:37,340
And one drive is where this gets worse.

503
00:19:37,340 –> 00:19:38,580
One drive is not personal.

504
00:19:38,580 –> 00:19:41,100
It becomes operational storage because it’s convenient

505
00:19:41,100 –> 00:19:42,580
because users default to it

506
00:19:42,580 –> 00:19:44,540
and because the organization often fails

507
00:19:44,540 –> 00:19:46,620
to create collaboration spaces fast enough.

508
00:19:46,620 –> 00:19:47,980
So the work happens in one drive.

509
00:19:47,980 –> 00:19:51,140
Then someone shares anyone with the link because they’re late.

510
00:19:51,140 –> 00:19:53,460
Then that file becomes referenced in other places.

511
00:19:53,460 –> 00:19:54,500
Then the owner leaves.

512
00:19:54,500 –> 00:19:57,780
And now your organization runs on an often one drive folder

513
00:19:57,780 –> 00:20:00,340
with unknown access and no life cycle ownership.

514
00:20:00,340 –> 00:20:02,460
This is how data becomes ungovernable

515
00:20:02,460 –> 00:20:04,300
without anyone doing anything malicious.

516
00:20:04,300 –> 00:20:05,540
It’s just flow.

517
00:20:05,540 –> 00:20:07,660
And the hidden coupling makes the stakes higher now

518
00:20:07,660 –> 00:20:09,420
than they were five years ago.

519
00:20:09,420 –> 00:20:12,420
Search turns your tenant into an information retrieval system.

520
00:20:12,420 –> 00:20:15,100
If you let sprawl and oversharing accumulate,

521
00:20:15,100 –> 00:20:17,260
search becomes an exposure amplifier.

522
00:20:17,260 –> 00:20:18,700
People find content they shouldn’t

523
00:20:18,700 –> 00:20:20,940
because your permission model is too permissive.

524
00:20:20,940 –> 00:20:22,260
Your labels are decorative

525
00:20:22,260 –> 00:20:24,900
and your sharing links behave like permanent exceptions.

526
00:20:24,900 –> 00:20:26,860
And co-pilot makes that coupling explicit.

527
00:20:26,860 –> 00:20:28,540
Co-pilot doesn’t create new access.

528
00:20:28,540 –> 00:20:30,300
It doesn’t magically grant permission.

529
00:20:30,300 –> 00:20:31,860
But it collapses the effort required

530
00:20:31,860 –> 00:20:34,300
to exploit whatever access already exists.

531
00:20:34,300 –> 00:20:37,100
It makes, I didn’t know that existed irrelevant.

532
00:20:37,100 –> 00:20:39,060
So the question isn’t is co-pilot safe?

533
00:20:39,060 –> 00:20:41,780
The question is, is your information flow safe?

534
00:20:41,780 –> 00:20:44,540
Because collaboration governance is not about preventing work.

535
00:20:44,540 –> 00:20:46,620
It’s about directing work into governed pathways.

536
00:20:46,620 –> 00:20:48,860
You need flow ownership who owns the life cycle

537
00:20:48,860 –> 00:20:50,580
from creation to deletion.

538
00:20:50,580 –> 00:20:54,100
You need default safe boundaries, templates, classification,

539
00:20:54,100 –> 00:20:57,220
exploration, renewal and ownership continuity.

540
00:20:57,220 –> 00:20:59,420
Governance is not telling people don’t share.

541
00:20:59,420 –> 00:21:01,100
Governance is making the safe way the easy way.

542
00:21:01,100 –> 00:21:03,940
And if you don’t do that, collaboration sprawl is not an accident.

543
00:21:03,940 –> 00:21:07,060
It’s the default outcome of an unmanaged flow.

544
00:21:07,060 –> 00:21:10,540
Failure pattern two, collaboration sprawl and often workspaces.

545
00:21:10,540 –> 00:21:13,340
Collaboration sprawl is what happens when self-service exists,

546
00:21:13,340 –> 00:21:15,340
but life cycle ownership does not.

547
00:21:15,340 –> 00:21:17,980
And Microsoft 365 is extremely good at self-service.

548
00:21:17,980 –> 00:21:21,980
Teams creation, group creation, sites, shared channels,

549
00:21:21,980 –> 00:21:25,140
planner plans, loop workspaces, private chats

550
00:21:25,140 –> 00:21:26,820
that quietly become project records.

551
00:21:26,820 –> 00:21:29,380
Everything is one click away because the product assumes

552
00:21:29,380 –> 00:21:31,420
your organization can manage the consequences.

553
00:21:31,420 –> 00:21:32,860
Most organizations can’t.

554
00:21:32,860 –> 00:21:35,020
So they get the predictable outcome, workspaces,

555
00:21:35,020 –> 00:21:37,940
multiply, ownership degrades and sensitive data settles

556
00:21:37,940 –> 00:21:40,260
into places nobody even remembers exists.

557
00:21:40,260 –> 00:21:43,660
Here’s the first mechanism, auto creation everywhere.

558
00:21:43,660 –> 00:21:45,940
Even if you think you locked down teams,

559
00:21:45,940 –> 00:21:48,140
you probably only blocked one doorway.

560
00:21:48,140 –> 00:21:51,180
Users still create M365 groups through other surfaces

561
00:21:51,180 –> 00:21:53,180
or they get someone else to create it for them

562
00:21:53,180 –> 00:21:54,860
or they spin up something adjacent

563
00:21:54,860 –> 00:21:56,980
that still creates a sharepoint site.

564
00:21:56,980 –> 00:22:00,420
And even if creation is truly restricted, that doesn’t stop sprawl.

565
00:22:00,420 –> 00:22:01,780
It just changes the shape of it.

566
00:22:01,780 –> 00:22:04,660
sprawl doesn’t require permission, sprawl requires demand

567
00:22:04,660 –> 00:22:05,980
and demand is constant.

568
00:22:05,980 –> 00:22:08,780
Project start, vendors show up, teams reorganize,

569
00:22:08,780 –> 00:22:11,060
new initiatives appear, people need a place to work.

570
00:22:11,060 –> 00:22:14,540
If you don’t provide a governed, fast path for that place to exist,

571
00:22:14,540 –> 00:22:16,660
users will create one anyway, somewhere.

572
00:22:16,660 –> 00:22:18,980
Now the second mechanism, no life cycle ownership,

573
00:22:18,980 –> 00:22:21,540
most tenants treat workspaces like their immortal.

574
00:22:21,540 –> 00:22:24,020
A team gets created for a project, the project ends

575
00:22:24,020 –> 00:22:25,660
and the team becomes a permanent archive.

576
00:22:25,660 –> 00:22:27,860
Nobody deletes it because deletion feels risky.

577
00:22:27,860 –> 00:22:30,500
Nobody archives it properly because nobody owns the policy.

578
00:22:30,500 –> 00:22:32,940
Nobody reviews access because there’s no cadence.

579
00:22:32,940 –> 00:22:36,460
So the workspace becomes an unmanaged repository of business history.

580
00:22:36,460 –> 00:22:37,540
That is not neutral.

581
00:22:37,540 –> 00:22:41,420
It is a compliance liability and a data exposure surface

582
00:22:41,420 –> 00:22:42,940
because the longer a workspace lives,

583
00:22:42,940 –> 00:22:45,780
the more its membership model diverges from current reality.

584
00:22:45,780 –> 00:22:48,540
People leave, people change roles, guests remain,

585
00:22:48,540 –> 00:22:50,820
owners depart and the workspace becomes often.

586
00:22:50,820 –> 00:22:53,220
Often workspaces are the most honest artifact

587
00:22:53,220 –> 00:22:54,500
of a broken governance model.

588
00:22:54,500 –> 00:22:58,460
The platform gives you a place that requires an accountable owner to maintain it.

589
00:22:58,460 –> 00:23:01,220
Your organization fails to maintain ownership continuity.

590
00:23:01,220 –> 00:23:04,100
So you end up with a container full of sensitive content,

591
00:23:04,100 –> 00:23:06,020
with access parts nobody can defend.

592
00:23:06,020 –> 00:23:07,660
And then during an audit or an incident,

593
00:23:07,660 –> 00:23:09,420
everyone discovers it at the same time.

594
00:23:09,420 –> 00:23:12,660
That’s not governance, that’s archaeology.

595
00:23:12,660 –> 00:23:14,020
Now the third mechanism,

596
00:23:14,020 –> 00:23:16,500
orfinding is not an edge case, it’s a default.

597
00:23:16,500 –> 00:23:19,980
If the only ownership model you have is whoever created it is the owner,

598
00:23:19,980 –> 00:23:23,100
you have already accepted that the workspace will eventually become unmanaged.

599
00:23:23,100 –> 00:23:24,340
People leave, that is normal.

600
00:23:24,340 –> 00:23:27,700
The system needs a transfer mechanism by design, not by ticket.

601
00:23:27,700 –> 00:23:29,860
If you don’t design ownership continuity,

602
00:23:29,860 –> 00:23:32,980
your tenant will accumulate dead workspaces with live data

603
00:23:32,980 –> 00:23:34,940
and you’ll see it in predictable symptoms.

604
00:23:34,940 –> 00:23:37,020
Maming conventions become cosmetic.

605
00:23:37,020 –> 00:23:40,700
People stop trusting search because results are polluted by stale sites.

606
00:23:40,700 –> 00:23:42,500
Classification becomes a checkbox

607
00:23:42,500 –> 00:23:45,100
because users learn labels don’t change outcomes.

608
00:23:45,100 –> 00:23:47,460
And the business adapts the way it always adapts.

609
00:23:47,460 –> 00:23:49,180
Duplication, they create a new team

610
00:23:49,180 –> 00:23:50,660
because the old one is confusing.

611
00:23:50,660 –> 00:23:53,460
They create a new site because they can’t find the document library.

612
00:23:53,460 –> 00:23:55,700
They copy the files because permissions are messy.

613
00:23:55,700 –> 00:23:58,460
They move a folder into one drive because it’s easier.

614
00:23:58,460 –> 00:23:59,780
The sprawl accelerates.

615
00:23:59,780 –> 00:24:01,020
And once sprawl accelerates,

616
00:24:01,020 –> 00:24:04,220
your security posture shifts from controlled to probabilistic.

617
00:24:04,220 –> 00:24:06,460
You can’t reliably answer basic questions,

618
00:24:06,460 –> 00:24:08,540
where is the data, who can access it,

619
00:24:08,540 –> 00:24:11,180
and what happens when someone shares it externally.

620
00:24:11,180 –> 00:24:14,140
This is where leaders get tricked by the existence of settings.

621
00:24:14,140 –> 00:24:16,260
They see a policy external sharing restricted

622
00:24:16,260 –> 00:24:18,940
that they assume the outcome external sharing controlled.

623
00:24:18,940 –> 00:24:21,340
But the real world runs on exceptions and workarounds.

624
00:24:21,340 –> 00:24:22,860
Someone creates a shared channel.

625
00:24:22,860 –> 00:24:24,100
Someone shares a file link.

626
00:24:24,100 –> 00:24:26,180
Someone invites a guest via a different path.

627
00:24:26,180 –> 00:24:27,820
Someone uses personal email forwarding.

628
00:24:27,820 –> 00:24:30,220
Someone uploads the file into a different app.

629
00:24:30,220 –> 00:24:33,260
And suddenly the policy is just a statement you wish were true.

630
00:24:33,260 –> 00:24:35,700
So the fix is not lockdown creation.

631
00:24:35,700 –> 00:24:37,860
That just creates a workaround economy.

632
00:24:37,860 –> 00:24:39,620
The fix is lifecycle enforcement.

633
00:24:39,620 –> 00:24:40,740
Creation with defaults,

634
00:24:40,740 –> 00:24:41,860
expiration by default,

635
00:24:41,860 –> 00:24:43,420
renewal with a real business owner

636
00:24:43,420 –> 00:24:45,340
and closure that is predictable and safe.

637
00:24:45,340 –> 00:24:46,620
You don’t need more committees.

638
00:24:46,620 –> 00:24:48,220
You need a system that makes ownership

639
00:24:48,220 –> 00:24:49,820
continuity inevitable.

640
00:24:49,820 –> 00:24:52,100
Because collaboration sprawl is not a user failure,

641
00:24:52,100 –> 00:24:54,020
it’s the direct outcome of a platform

642
00:24:54,020 –> 00:24:55,300
that creates containers faster

643
00:24:55,300 –> 00:24:57,620
than your organization can maintain accountability.

644
00:24:57,620 –> 00:25:00,020
And once your workspaces are unowned,

645
00:25:00,020 –> 00:25:02,980
the next failure pattern becomes inevitable.

646
00:25:02,980 –> 00:25:05,100
Automation doesn’t just amplify productivity.

647
00:25:05,100 –> 00:25:07,740
It amplifies whatever mess you already have.

648
00:25:07,740 –> 00:25:11,540
Automation is a privilege multiplier, not a productivity toy.

649
00:25:11,540 –> 00:25:14,060
Collaboration sprawl is bad enough when it’s passive.

650
00:25:14,060 –> 00:25:15,740
Files sitting in the wrong place.

651
00:25:15,740 –> 00:25:17,940
Owners missing, links drifting,

652
00:25:17,940 –> 00:25:20,380
annoying, risky, but still mostly static.

653
00:25:20,380 –> 00:25:22,460
Automation changes the physics.

654
00:25:22,460 –> 00:25:25,140
Automation turns your tenant from a messy filing cabinet

655
00:25:25,140 –> 00:25:26,220
into a conveyor belt.

656
00:25:26,220 –> 00:25:28,300
It moves data, it copies it, it transforms it,

657
00:25:28,300 –> 00:25:31,020
it forwards it, it triggers actions in other systems.

658
00:25:31,020 –> 00:25:32,700
And it does all of that at machine speed

659
00:25:32,700 –> 00:25:33,980
with human friendly buttons

660
00:25:33,980 –> 00:25:35,820
that hide what’s actually being granted.

661
00:25:35,820 –> 00:25:37,620
This is the uncomfortable truth.

662
00:25:37,620 –> 00:25:39,980
Power automate is not productivity

663
00:25:39,980 –> 00:25:41,540
to it is delegated execution

664
00:25:41,540 –> 00:25:44,380
and delegated execution is always a privilege decision.

665
00:25:44,380 –> 00:25:46,820
Every flow is an identity acting on resources.

666
00:25:46,820 –> 00:25:48,380
Sometimes it’s your user identity.

667
00:25:48,380 –> 00:25:50,820
Sometimes it’s a connection created under your identity.

668
00:25:50,820 –> 00:25:53,540
Sometimes it’s a service principle behind the scenes.

669
00:25:53,540 –> 00:25:54,700
But the pattern is the same.

670
00:25:54,700 –> 00:25:56,900
A person creates a repeatable action path

671
00:25:56,900 –> 00:25:59,380
and the platform executes it without asking you again.

672
00:25:59,380 –> 00:26:01,380
That means the real governance question

673
00:26:01,380 –> 00:26:02,980
isn’t who built this flow.

674
00:26:02,980 –> 00:26:05,220
The real question is, what can this flow touch

675
00:26:05,220 –> 00:26:06,300
and where can it send it?

676
00:26:06,300 –> 00:26:08,500
Because connectors are not integrations.

677
00:26:08,500 –> 00:26:09,620
They are permission bundles.

678
00:26:09,620 –> 00:26:11,860
They are authorization edges in the graph.

679
00:26:11,860 –> 00:26:14,740
A connector to SharePoint Exchange, OneDrive Teams,

680
00:26:14,740 –> 00:26:16,500
SQL Sales Force Service Now,

681
00:26:16,500 –> 00:26:18,140
doesn’t matter which, always resolves

682
00:26:18,140 –> 00:26:19,860
to the same underlying risk.

683
00:26:19,860 –> 00:26:22,100
A non-human process now has access to data

684
00:26:22,100 –> 00:26:23,700
and can move it somewhere else.

685
00:26:23,700 –> 00:26:26,140
And Power automate makes that feel harmless.

686
00:26:26,140 –> 00:26:27,860
It’s designed to.

687
00:26:27,860 –> 00:26:31,900
The UI says, when an email arrives, save the attachment.

688
00:26:31,900 –> 00:26:32,500
Cute.

689
00:26:32,500 –> 00:26:35,220
The system reality is, when an email arrives,

690
00:26:35,220 –> 00:26:37,740
extract content, persisted, replicated,

691
00:26:37,740 –> 00:26:39,740
potentially share it and do it forever.

692
00:26:39,740 –> 00:26:42,780
This is how X filtration happens without anyone intending it.

693
00:26:42,780 –> 00:26:44,580
Not through advanced attackers at first,

694
00:26:44,580 –> 00:26:47,460
through well-meaning makers, building just a quick thing

695
00:26:47,460 –> 00:26:50,540
in the default environment, using personal connections

696
00:26:50,540 –> 00:26:53,140
with no boundary enforcement and then leaving the company.

697
00:26:53,140 –> 00:26:55,620
And now you’ve got a business process you can’t see,

698
00:26:55,620 –> 00:26:58,100
can’t audit, cleanly, and can’t easily attribute.

699
00:26:58,100 –> 00:26:59,740
It’s running because it was useful once

700
00:26:59,740 –> 00:27:02,060
and nobody had the authority or even the visibility

701
00:27:02,060 –> 00:27:02,740
to shut it down.

702
00:27:02,740 –> 00:27:04,660
This is where tool first governance collapses.

703
00:27:04,660 –> 00:27:06,300
The Teams admin doesn’t govern flows.

704
00:27:06,300 –> 00:27:08,180
The SharePoint admin doesn’t govern connectors.

705
00:27:08,180 –> 00:27:10,540
The PerView person doesn’t own runtime behavior.

706
00:27:10,540 –> 00:27:13,740
The identity team doesn’t own what the automation touches,

707
00:27:13,740 –> 00:27:15,420
only who can sign in.

708
00:27:15,420 –> 00:27:17,420
So automation becomes the accelerant

709
00:27:17,420 –> 00:27:20,460
that turns fragmented ownership into real incidents.

710
00:27:20,460 –> 00:27:21,620
Here’s what most people miss.

711
00:27:21,620 –> 00:27:24,820
The default environment is not a starter environment.

712
00:27:24,820 –> 00:27:26,380
It’s an entropy generator.

713
00:27:26,380 –> 00:27:28,420
It becomes the place where everything lands

714
00:27:28,420 –> 00:27:30,540
because it’s available, because it’s frictionless

715
00:27:30,540 –> 00:27:33,140
and because nobody wants to tell the business, no.

716
00:27:33,140 –> 00:27:34,580
So the business builds there.

717
00:27:34,580 –> 00:27:37,020
Personal flows become organizational dependencies.

718
00:27:37,020 –> 00:27:39,140
And then you’ve created operational risk

719
00:27:39,140 –> 00:27:41,020
that isn’t tied to any formal system.

720
00:27:41,020 –> 00:27:42,700
Now add data boundaries.

721
00:27:42,700 –> 00:27:44,700
If you don’t have a clear environment strategy

722
00:27:44,700 –> 00:27:46,260
and data loss prevention boundaries

723
00:27:46,260 –> 00:27:48,060
that map to real data classes,

724
00:27:48,060 –> 00:27:50,260
connectors will traverse sensitivity levels.

725
00:27:50,260 –> 00:27:53,060
People will pull HR data into a quick approval flow

726
00:27:53,060 –> 00:27:54,700
that writes into a SharePoint list.

727
00:27:54,700 –> 00:27:56,700
They will pull finance data into a spreadsheet

728
00:27:56,700 –> 00:27:58,740
stored in a team that has guests.

729
00:27:58,740 –> 00:28:00,820
They will forward customer data into a mailbox

730
00:28:00,820 –> 00:28:01,940
that has broad delegates.

731
00:28:01,940 –> 00:28:04,460
And your policies will light up with alerts that nobody owns

732
00:28:04,460 –> 00:28:06,860
because again, policies don’t enforce intent.

733
00:28:06,860 –> 00:28:07,980
Ownership does.

734
00:28:07,980 –> 00:28:09,500
And the most dangerous illusion is thinking

735
00:28:09,500 –> 00:28:11,740
you can govern automation by training makers.

736
00:28:11,740 –> 00:28:14,180
Training is good, but training is not enforcement.

737
00:28:14,180 –> 00:28:16,380
If your governance relies on every maker remembering

738
00:28:16,380 –> 00:28:19,180
what’s allowed, you’ve already accepted a probabilistic model.

739
00:28:19,180 –> 00:28:21,460
Some will remember, some won’t, some will leave,

740
00:28:21,460 –> 00:28:23,460
some will copy a template from the internet.

741
00:28:23,460 –> 00:28:25,060
The system will still execute the flow.

742
00:28:25,060 –> 00:28:27,220
So the system first model for automation is simple

743
00:28:27,220 –> 00:28:28,380
and it’s not negotiable.

744
00:28:28,380 –> 00:28:29,860
Govern boundaries, not builders.

745
00:28:29,860 –> 00:28:32,500
Govern what it touches, not who clicked create.

746
00:28:32,500 –> 00:28:35,500
Govern where it runs, not which team claims ownership.

747
00:28:35,500 –> 00:28:37,820
Automation needs enforced zones, environments

748
00:28:37,820 –> 00:28:39,580
with clear purpose, strong defaults,

749
00:28:39,580 –> 00:28:41,500
and explicit connectivity boundaries.

750
00:28:41,500 –> 00:28:43,660
It needs least privileged connections by design,

751
00:28:43,660 –> 00:28:45,460
not as a heroic afterthought.

752
00:28:45,460 –> 00:28:48,380
It needs visibility that ties flows to business processes

753
00:28:48,380 –> 00:28:49,540
not just users.

754
00:28:49,540 –> 00:28:53,060
And it needs an operating model where this flow is now critical,

755
00:28:53,060 –> 00:28:55,780
triggers ownership, documentation, and life cycle

756
00:28:55,780 –> 00:28:58,020
like any other production system.

757
00:28:58,020 –> 00:29:00,300
Because once automation exists, it will outlive

758
00:29:00,300 –> 00:29:01,540
the person who made it.

759
00:29:01,540 –> 00:29:03,740
That is not a bug, that is the point.

760
00:29:03,740 –> 00:29:06,020
And if you treat it like a toy, the platform will treat

761
00:29:06,020 –> 00:29:07,780
your data like a toy too.

762
00:29:07,780 –> 00:29:10,620
Failure pattern three, automation without governance.

763
00:29:10,620 –> 00:29:13,220
Failure pattern three is what happens when automation becomes

764
00:29:13,220 –> 00:29:16,180
operational before it becomes accountable.

765
00:29:16,180 –> 00:29:18,260
It usually starts with something harmless,

766
00:29:18,260 –> 00:29:21,020
a flow to save email attachments, a form that

767
00:29:21,020 –> 00:29:22,980
writes into a list, an approval that

768
00:29:22,980 –> 00:29:24,620
pings a manager in teams.

769
00:29:24,620 –> 00:29:27,980
People celebrate because tickets disappear and work moves faster.

770
00:29:27,980 –> 00:29:31,780
And then the tenant begins to depend on invisible logic owned by nobody.

771
00:29:31,780 –> 00:29:33,300
The first tell is always the same.

772
00:29:33,300 –> 00:29:35,540
Everything lives in the default environment,

773
00:29:35,540 –> 00:29:38,580
not because it’s the right place, because it’s the place that exists.

774
00:29:38,580 –> 00:29:40,940
It’s the path of least resistance and the platform

775
00:29:40,940 –> 00:29:42,540
rewards that path with speed.

776
00:29:42,540 –> 00:29:44,020
So the organization accidentally creates

777
00:29:44,020 –> 00:29:45,300
its own production environment.

778
00:29:45,300 –> 00:29:46,340
It’s called default.

779
00:29:46,340 –> 00:29:48,100
It has no separation of duties.

780
00:29:48,100 –> 00:29:49,420
It has no meaningful boundary.

781
00:29:49,420 –> 00:29:52,700
It becomes the dumping ground where personal flows, departmental flows,

782
00:29:52,700 –> 00:29:54,980
and business critical automations all coexist.

783
00:29:54,980 –> 00:29:55,900
That is not agility.

784
00:29:55,900 –> 00:29:57,780
That is an unregulated runtime.

785
00:29:57,780 –> 00:30:01,020
The second tell is connect us broad without data boundary enforcement.

786
00:30:01,020 –> 00:30:02,940
People connect to SharePoint Outlook Excel,

787
00:30:02,940 –> 00:30:07,180
Dataverse SQL, Third-Party Services, and whatever else solves the immediate problem.

788
00:30:07,180 –> 00:30:09,540
Each connection is a standing authorization edge.

789
00:30:09,540 –> 00:30:11,940
And because the maker experience is designed to feel safe,

790
00:30:11,940 –> 00:30:14,700
those edges look like convenience, not capability,

791
00:30:14,700 –> 00:30:16,100
but capability is what it is.

792
00:30:16,100 –> 00:30:19,220
A flow can move data from a high sensitivity location

793
00:30:19,220 –> 00:30:21,380
to a low sensitivity location in seconds.

794
00:30:21,380 –> 00:30:22,660
It can replicate records.

795
00:30:22,660 –> 00:30:23,500
It can export.

796
00:30:23,500 –> 00:30:24,260
It can forward.

797
00:30:24,260 –> 00:30:26,780
It can trigger actions in other systems.

798
00:30:26,780 –> 00:30:29,500
And if you do not enforce boundaries at the environment level,

799
00:30:29,500 –> 00:30:34,020
you do not have a way to ensure that confidential in doesn’t become public out.

800
00:30:34,020 –> 00:30:35,380
You have policy intent.

801
00:30:35,380 –> 00:30:37,020
You do not have policy control.

802
00:30:37,020 –> 00:30:39,260
The third tell is the accountability fracture.

803
00:30:39,260 –> 00:30:42,860
IT owns outages, the business owns logic, and nobody owns risk.

804
00:30:42,860 –> 00:30:46,660
When a flow fails, I’d get the escalation because Microsoft is down.

805
00:30:46,660 –> 00:30:49,460
When it succeeds and creates value, the business claims it.

806
00:30:49,460 –> 00:30:52,500
When it exposes data, security is blamed for not blocking it.

807
00:30:52,500 –> 00:30:55,540
When DLP triggers compliance is blamed for being too strict,

808
00:30:55,540 –> 00:30:58,500
this is how automation becomes a liability amplifier.

809
00:30:58,500 –> 00:31:01,540
It touches multiple domains while ownership stays fragmented.

810
00:31:01,540 –> 00:31:04,500
So incidents look like arguments, not resolutions.

811
00:31:04,500 –> 00:31:07,700
Now add continuity risk because it always arrives eventually.

812
00:31:07,700 –> 00:31:10,580
Maker autonomy creates dependency on individuals.

813
00:31:10,580 –> 00:31:15,300
A single person builds an approval flow that becomes the only way invoices get processed.

814
00:31:15,300 –> 00:31:16,500
Then they take vacation.

815
00:31:16,500 –> 00:31:17,100
Then they leave.

816
00:31:17,100 –> 00:31:19,700
Then the flow still runs, but nobody understands it.

817
00:31:19,700 –> 00:31:21,500
Or worse, it stops running.

818
00:31:21,500 –> 00:31:23,100
And nobody can explain why.

819
00:31:23,100 –> 00:31:26,740
That’s the moment leadership discovers that citizen development without governance

820
00:31:26,740 –> 00:31:28,660
is just undocumented production.

821
00:31:28,660 –> 00:31:30,380
And the platform will not save you from this.

822
00:31:30,380 –> 00:31:33,100
It will happily keep executing whatever exists.

823
00:31:33,100 –> 00:31:35,660
It will not ask if the business process is still valid.

824
00:31:35,660 –> 00:31:37,860
It will not ask if the owner is still employed.

825
00:31:37,860 –> 00:31:41,060
It will not ask if the connector still points to an approved system.

826
00:31:41,060 –> 00:31:41,940
It will just run.

827
00:31:41,940 –> 00:31:45,460
This is where organizations drift into the most dangerous posture.

828
00:31:45,460 –> 00:31:47,340
Invisible business processes.

829
00:31:47,340 –> 00:31:50,820
They are invisible to audit because the intent was never documented.

830
00:31:50,820 –> 00:31:54,060
They are invisible to risk because the blast radius was never modeled.

831
00:31:54,060 –> 00:31:57,380
They are invisible to operations because monitoring was never designed.

832
00:31:57,380 –> 00:32:01,060
They are invisible to leadership because the work just happens until it doesn’t.

833
00:32:01,060 –> 00:32:03,380
And then everybody calls it a Microsoft problem.

834
00:32:03,380 –> 00:32:04,180
It isn’t.

835
00:32:04,180 –> 00:32:07,300
This is still the people problem expressed as governance omission.

836
00:32:07,300 –> 00:32:12,460
No environment strategy, no data boundary enforcement, no life cycle ownership for automations,

837
00:32:12,460 –> 00:32:15,500
no clear line between experimentation and production,

838
00:32:15,500 –> 00:32:18,980
and no role accountable for end-to-end automation integrity.

839
00:32:18,980 –> 00:32:20,620
The fix is not banning makers.

840
00:32:20,620 –> 00:32:24,500
That just recreates shadow IT with more resentment and less visibility.

841
00:32:24,500 –> 00:32:29,020
The fix is an operating model that treats automation as a governed privilege multiplier.

842
00:32:29,020 –> 00:32:32,700
Default environment becomes constrained by design, not by hope.

843
00:32:32,700 –> 00:32:37,260
Production-grade automations run in dedicated environments with enforced boundaries.

844
00:32:37,260 –> 00:32:41,420
Connections become least privilege and reviewable, not personal and permanent.

845
00:32:41,420 –> 00:32:44,740
Critical flows have owners, documentation and continuity plans.

846
00:32:44,740 –> 00:32:47,900
Exceptions are treated as risk events, not productivity wins.

847
00:32:47,900 –> 00:32:51,980
And most importantly, you stop pretending that automation is just productivity.

848
00:32:51,980 –> 00:32:53,660
It is execution.

849
00:32:53,660 –> 00:32:56,740
At scale execution without governance is not innovation.

850
00:32:56,740 –> 00:32:59,380
It’s an incident queue that hasn’t happened yet.

851
00:32:59,380 –> 00:33:02,420
Compliance theater, policies existing is not governance.

852
00:33:02,420 –> 00:33:07,700
Compliance theater is what happens when an organization confuses we have policies with we have control.

853
00:33:07,700 –> 00:33:12,060
It’s the most expensive illusion in Microsoft 365 governance because it looks responsible.

854
00:33:12,060 –> 00:33:16,820
It produces artifacts, it fills dashboards, it generates screenshots for auditors.

855
00:33:16,820 –> 00:33:18,940
And it still fails the only test that matters.

856
00:33:18,940 –> 00:33:23,340
Does the organization consistently behave within defined boundaries when nobody is watching?

857
00:33:23,340 –> 00:33:26,140
In most tenants, the compliance story starts with configuration.

858
00:33:26,140 –> 00:33:31,100
A DLP policy gets created, a retention policy gets published, a label taxonomy gets rolled out.

859
00:33:31,100 –> 00:33:33,460
People celebrate because something visible happened.

860
00:33:33,460 –> 00:33:36,900
Then nothing changes or worse, behavior changes in the wrong direction.

861
00:33:36,900 –> 00:33:40,500
Users hit friction, they root around it, the platform allows the detour.

862
00:33:40,500 –> 00:33:46,380
The business keeps moving, the policy stays in place like a do not enter sign in the city full of side streets.

863
00:33:46,380 –> 00:33:49,300
That’s compliance theater, the sign exists, the traffic still flows.

864
00:33:49,300 –> 00:33:50,900
The reason this happens is simple.

865
00:33:50,900 –> 00:33:55,420
A policy is not governance, a policy is an opinion until it is enforced, owned and measured.

866
00:33:55,420 –> 00:33:58,820
Most organizations deploy DLP like it’s a checkbox for audits.

867
00:33:58,820 –> 00:34:04,060
It catches the obvious cases, generates noise and then gets tuned down until it stops causing complaints.

868
00:34:04,060 –> 00:34:07,860
Not because the policy was wrong, because nobody owned the consequences of enforcement.

869
00:34:07,860 –> 00:34:09,580
The DLP rule becomes a suggestion.

870
00:34:09,580 –> 00:34:11,180
Then the business learns it can ignore it.

871
00:34:11,180 –> 00:34:12,860
Then the control loses credibility.

872
00:34:12,860 –> 00:34:15,220
Then users stop caring about the rules entirely.

873
00:34:15,220 –> 00:34:19,100
Credibility is a control surface, once it dies everything else erodes faster.

874
00:34:19,100 –> 00:34:20,820
Retention is even more revealing.

875
00:34:20,820 –> 00:34:26,300
Many tenants implement retention as a legal checkbox with no life cycle ownership behind it.

876
00:34:26,300 –> 00:34:29,740
So data is retained just in case, forever.

877
00:34:29,740 –> 00:34:33,340
In the same collaboration spaces that are already sprawling.

878
00:34:33,340 –> 00:34:34,980
Which creates a perfect trap.

879
00:34:34,980 –> 00:34:39,140
You have more data in more places for longer, with less ownership.

880
00:34:39,140 –> 00:34:42,300
That is not compliance maturity, that is legal and operational debt.

881
00:34:42,300 –> 00:34:46,900
And it creates the worst audit experience because proving compliance is harder than being compliant.

882
00:34:46,900 –> 00:34:48,900
You can be mostly compliant by accident.

883
00:34:48,900 –> 00:34:52,220
You can’t prove it without ownership, logs and repeatable process.

884
00:34:52,220 –> 00:34:55,020
Now add sensitivity labels, the favorite theatre prop.

885
00:34:55,020 –> 00:34:56,900
Labels are supposed to be contracts.

886
00:34:56,900 –> 00:34:59,460
This class of data behaves like this everywhere.

887
00:34:59,460 –> 00:35:01,820
But most tenants deploy them as taxonomy.

888
00:35:01,820 –> 00:35:06,540
A classification exercise, a folder coloring exercise, people label documents maybe,

889
00:35:06,540 –> 00:35:08,100
or auto label catches some things.

890
00:35:08,100 –> 00:35:10,940
But enforcement isn’t tied to what leadership actually cares about.

891
00:35:10,940 –> 00:35:14,260
Who can share where data can go and what happens when it leaks?

892
00:35:14,260 –> 00:35:18,620
If your label doesn’t change access, sharing, encryption or life cycle, it’s decoration.

893
00:35:18,620 –> 00:35:22,540
And users learn quickly which controls are real and which controls are performative.

894
00:35:22,540 –> 00:35:24,220
Here’s the operational tell.

895
00:35:24,220 –> 00:35:27,700
Alerts exist, but nobody can answer who owns the response.

896
00:35:27,700 –> 00:35:29,420
A DLP alert fires.

897
00:35:29,420 –> 00:35:31,860
Who investigates, security says it’s compliance.

898
00:35:31,860 –> 00:35:33,060
Compliance says it’s IT.

899
00:35:33,060 –> 00:35:34,460
It says it’s the data owner.

900
00:35:34,460 –> 00:35:36,900
The data owner says they don’t know what DLP is.

901
00:35:36,900 –> 00:35:40,660
Meanwhile, the alert queue grows until it becomes background noise.

902
00:35:40,660 –> 00:35:44,380
That is entropy in its pure form, signals without action.

903
00:35:44,380 –> 00:35:48,500
And the platform encourages this failure mode because it’s easy to deploy policies without

904
00:35:48,500 –> 00:35:49,940
deploying accountability.

905
00:35:49,940 –> 00:35:53,100
Per view makes it possible to create sophisticated controls.

906
00:35:53,100 –> 00:35:56,420
It does not magically assign ownership across your business functions.

907
00:35:56,420 –> 00:35:57,860
That part is still on you.

908
00:35:57,860 –> 00:35:59,180
This is the uncomfortable truth.

909
00:35:59,180 –> 00:36:01,020
Compliance is not a purview persona.

910
00:36:01,020 –> 00:36:02,700
Compliance is a business operating model.

911
00:36:02,700 –> 00:36:05,860
It has to include intent, enforcement and feedback loops.

912
00:36:05,860 –> 00:36:08,020
Intent is the rule expressed in business terms.

913
00:36:08,020 –> 00:36:09,020
What matters?

914
00:36:09,020 –> 00:36:10,020
What doesn’t?

915
00:36:10,020 –> 00:36:11,020
What is the best possible?

916
00:36:11,020 –> 00:36:12,020
And which aren’t?

917
00:36:12,020 –> 00:36:14,540
Enforcement is the default safe behavior.

918
00:36:14,540 –> 00:36:17,580
Guard rails that work without constant tickets.

919
00:36:17,580 –> 00:36:18,980
Feedback is routine review.

920
00:36:18,980 –> 00:36:19,980
What’s being blocked?

921
00:36:19,980 –> 00:36:20,980
What’s being allowed?

922
00:36:20,980 –> 00:36:22,140
What’s being bypassed?

923
00:36:22,140 –> 00:36:24,140
And where the business is pushing back?

924
00:36:24,140 –> 00:36:27,220
Without feedback, your policies drift into irrelevance.

925
00:36:27,220 –> 00:36:29,860
Without enforcement, your policies drift into theatre.

926
00:36:29,860 –> 00:36:32,100
Without ownership, your policies drift into silence.

927
00:36:32,100 –> 00:36:35,940
So when leadership says we bought per view were covered, they are buying a false sense of

928
00:36:35,940 –> 00:36:36,940
safety.

929
00:36:36,940 –> 00:36:37,940
Per view is a control plane.

930
00:36:37,940 –> 00:36:40,780
It can express constraints, but it cannot decide what you mean.

931
00:36:40,780 –> 00:36:42,700
It cannot reconcile conflicting goals.

932
00:36:42,700 –> 00:36:44,100
And it cannot own the consequences.

933
00:36:44,100 –> 00:36:45,540
That’s still your people problem.

934
00:36:45,540 –> 00:36:48,100
And in the next failure pattern, you’ll see it clearly.

935
00:36:48,100 –> 00:36:49,660
Per view configured perfectly.

936
00:36:49,660 –> 00:36:52,660
And still nobody owns what happens to the business when it fires.

937
00:36:52,660 –> 00:36:53,660
Failure pattern 4.

938
00:36:53,660 –> 00:36:56,660
Per view configured, but no one owns the consequences.

939
00:36:56,660 –> 00:36:59,540
This failure pattern is where the illusion becomes expensive.

940
00:36:59,540 –> 00:37:00,620
Per view gets configured.

941
00:37:00,620 –> 00:37:01,940
The tenant gets policies.

942
00:37:01,940 –> 00:37:03,620
The audit deck gets screenshots.

943
00:37:03,620 –> 00:37:06,660
And then the organisation discovers the part nobody budgeted for.

944
00:37:06,660 –> 00:37:10,060
Per view does not just protect data.

945
00:37:10,060 –> 00:37:11,060
It changes behaviour.

946
00:37:11,060 –> 00:37:12,660
It introduces friction on purpose.

947
00:37:12,660 –> 00:37:14,020
That’s what control is.

948
00:37:14,020 –> 00:37:17,940
And the moment control creates friction, users respond the only way humans respond.

949
00:37:17,940 –> 00:37:19,140
They optimise around it.

950
00:37:19,140 –> 00:37:23,820
If nobody owns the consequences of that optimisation, your governance collapses into a cycle of

951
00:37:23,820 –> 00:37:26,300
tuning policies down until they stop bothering people.

952
00:37:26,300 –> 00:37:27,940
The most common example is DLP.

953
00:37:27,940 –> 00:37:29,620
A central team writes a DLP rule.

954
00:37:29,620 –> 00:37:32,220
They scope it broadly because broad scope looks responsible.

955
00:37:32,220 –> 00:37:35,180
They turn on blocking because blocking looks like governance.

956
00:37:35,180 –> 00:37:38,420
Then the policy hits production and it lands where it always lands.

957
00:37:38,420 –> 00:37:42,620
On the busiest people doing the most time sensitive work, finance tries to send a file,

958
00:37:42,620 –> 00:37:43,620
blocked.

959
00:37:43,620 –> 00:37:46,220
Sales tries to share a quote, blocked.

960
00:37:46,220 –> 00:37:49,220
Legal tries to forward a contract, blocked.

961
00:37:49,220 –> 00:37:52,380
The business doesn’t interpret that as the organisation is safer.

962
00:37:52,380 –> 00:37:54,500
They interpret it as it is in the way.

963
00:37:54,500 –> 00:37:56,180
So they create a workaround economy.

964
00:37:56,180 –> 00:37:58,140
They paste the content into an email.

965
00:37:58,140 –> 00:37:59,140
They screenshot it.

966
00:37:59,140 –> 00:38:00,140
They export it.

967
00:38:00,140 –> 00:38:01,620
They move it to a different workspace.

968
00:38:01,620 –> 00:38:02,820
They use a personal account.

969
00:38:02,820 –> 00:38:04,020
They use an external tool.

970
00:38:04,020 –> 00:38:08,780
And the only thing the DLP policy accomplished was pushing the same data into a less visible,

971
00:38:08,780 –> 00:38:09,780
less governed path.

972
00:38:09,780 –> 00:38:11,340
That’s not a DLP failure.

973
00:38:11,340 –> 00:38:12,820
That’s an ownership failure.

974
00:38:12,820 –> 00:38:17,540
Because good DLP requires tuning and tuning requires a feedback loop with decision authority.

975
00:38:17,540 –> 00:38:21,700
Who decides whether the friction is acceptable, who decides what exception is allowed, and

976
00:38:21,700 –> 00:38:25,620
who owns the downstream risk when an exception becomes normal.

977
00:38:25,620 –> 00:38:27,380
Most organisations don’t have that person.

978
00:38:27,380 –> 00:38:28,980
They have a purview person.

979
00:38:28,980 –> 00:38:30,860
And a purview person is not a business owner.

980
00:38:30,860 –> 00:38:33,460
They cannot accept business risk on behalf of finance.

981
00:38:33,460 –> 00:38:34,900
They cannot redefine process.

982
00:38:34,900 –> 00:38:36,420
They can only adjust the policy.

983
00:38:36,420 –> 00:38:38,660
So the policy becomes the negotiation surface.

984
00:38:38,660 –> 00:38:42,700
You end up with conditional chaos, but in compliance form, a growing pile of just this

985
00:38:42,700 –> 00:38:46,060
one exception until enforcement becomes probabilistic.

986
00:38:46,060 –> 00:38:47,780
Retention is worse because it’s slower.

987
00:38:47,780 –> 00:38:51,180
Retention gets designed as a legal requirement, not as a life cycle system.

988
00:38:51,180 –> 00:38:55,820
The policy says, “Keep for seven years, but nobody owns what keeps means operationally.”

989
00:38:55,820 –> 00:39:00,220
Does the workspace archive, does ownership transfer, does content get disposed on schedule?

990
00:39:00,220 –> 00:39:03,260
Does it move to a lower cost, lower access archive?

991
00:39:03,260 –> 00:39:06,740
What does it just sit in active collaboration sites forever because nobody wants to delete

992
00:39:06,740 –> 00:39:07,740
anything?

993
00:39:07,740 –> 00:39:11,820
Most tenants choose the last option, not out of malice, out of missing ownership.

994
00:39:11,820 –> 00:39:15,980
And then, years later, during eDiscovery, the organisation realises it retained everything

995
00:39:15,980 –> 00:39:20,060
in the noisiest possible place with the weakest possible ownership, with the highest possible

996
00:39:20,060 –> 00:39:21,300
access sprawl.

997
00:39:21,300 –> 00:39:24,740
Legal wanted defensibility, the operating model delivered hoarding.

998
00:39:24,740 –> 00:39:26,460
Those are not the same thing.

999
00:39:26,460 –> 00:39:28,860
Sensitivity labels fail in the same way.

1000
00:39:28,860 –> 00:39:32,820
They get deployed as taxonomy, public internal, confidential, highly confidential.

1001
00:39:32,820 –> 00:39:33,980
They pick a label.

1002
00:39:33,980 –> 00:39:36,060
Sometimes maybe auto label applies something.

1003
00:39:36,060 –> 00:39:38,660
But labels are not governance unless they are enforcement contracts.

1004
00:39:38,660 –> 00:39:41,740
A label must mean this content behaves differently.

1005
00:39:41,740 –> 00:39:45,660
Sharing changes, access changes, encryption changes, external access changes, life cycle

1006
00:39:45,660 –> 00:39:47,620
changes, audit posture changes.

1007
00:39:47,620 –> 00:39:50,660
If your labels don’t change behaviour, users treat them as decoration.

1008
00:39:50,660 –> 00:39:54,620
And the moment users treat classification as decoration, your entire risk model becomes

1009
00:39:54,620 –> 00:39:55,820
narrative driven.

1010
00:39:55,820 –> 00:39:59,700
We label things, therefore we control things, therefore we are compliant.

1011
00:39:59,700 –> 00:40:00,700
Until you have to prove it.

1012
00:40:00,700 –> 00:40:03,860
Political readiness is where this pattern collapses publicly.

1013
00:40:03,860 –> 00:40:06,260
When an auditor asks, who owns this policy?

1014
00:40:06,260 –> 00:40:11,780
The answer cannot be the purview admin.

1015
00:40:11,780 –> 00:40:14,700
Because owning the policy means owning its business impact.

1016
00:40:14,700 –> 00:40:19,060
Training, process changes, exception paths, enforcement decisions and measured outcomes.

1017
00:40:19,060 –> 00:40:22,940
If the responsibility is fragmented, proving compliance becomes a scavenger hunt across

1018
00:40:22,940 –> 00:40:25,220
IT, security, legal and the business.

1019
00:40:25,220 –> 00:40:28,660
And the most dangerous outcome is trust erosion between internal functions.

1020
00:40:28,660 –> 00:40:31,780
To assume security has it, security assumes IT is monitoring.

1021
00:40:31,780 –> 00:40:34,100
IT assumes the business is following the rules.

1022
00:40:34,100 –> 00:40:37,780
The business assumes the rules are optional because they keep finding ways around them.

1023
00:40:37,780 –> 00:40:39,420
Everyone is wrong.

1024
00:40:39,420 –> 00:40:43,340
The system is doing exactly what you designed, enforcing policies without owners.

1025
00:40:43,340 –> 00:40:46,860
So the fix for this failure pattern is not more purview, it’s not better DLP.

1026
00:40:46,860 –> 00:40:50,220
It’s not more labels, it’s ownership of consequences.

1027
00:40:50,220 –> 00:40:54,220
A named function that owns the outcomes created by purview where friction lands, what

1028
00:40:54,220 –> 00:40:58,220
work around the pier, what exceptions are allowed, and what risk is accepted when

1029
00:40:58,220 –> 00:41:00,860
the business insists on speed.

1030
00:41:00,860 –> 00:41:04,260
Until you assign that ownership, purview will remain a beautifully configured control

1031
00:41:04,260 –> 00:41:08,260
plane, governing a tenant that behaves like it has no governor at all.

1032
00:41:08,260 –> 00:41:11,140
The certification trap manuals are not governance capability.

1033
00:41:11,140 –> 00:41:14,820
Here’s the part leadership keeps getting wrong because it’s comforting.

1034
00:41:14,820 –> 00:41:15,820
We’re fine.

1035
00:41:15,820 –> 00:41:17,140
Are people are certified?

1036
00:41:17,140 –> 00:41:18,140
They are trained.

1037
00:41:18,140 –> 00:41:19,140
That’s different.

1038
00:41:19,140 –> 00:41:23,220
Certifications prove someone can navigate portals, memorize feature boundaries and reproduce

1039
00:41:23,220 –> 00:41:27,060
a reference architecture diagram on command that makes them employable.

1040
00:41:27,060 –> 00:41:31,820
It does not make them capable of governing a platform that behaves like a single authorization

1041
00:41:31,820 –> 00:41:32,820
system.

1042
00:41:32,820 –> 00:41:34,380
This is the certification trap.

1043
00:41:34,380 –> 00:41:38,340
You hire for tool fluency and assume you purchased governance.

1044
00:41:38,340 –> 00:41:39,340
You didn’t.

1045
00:41:39,340 –> 00:41:42,140
You hired operators for a system that requires governors.

1046
00:41:42,140 –> 00:41:46,140
The platform punishes narrow expertise, not because specialists are useless, but because

1047
00:41:46,140 –> 00:41:49,380
specialization becomes blindness when the system is coupled.

1048
00:41:49,380 –> 00:41:54,220
A team’s expert who doesn’t understand entroral blast radius will fix teams by creating new

1049
00:41:54,220 –> 00:41:55,660
exceptions in the group layer.

1050
00:41:55,660 –> 00:42:00,500
A SharePoint expert who doesn’t understand link governance will secure sites while the

1051
00:42:00,500 –> 00:42:03,900
organization shares data through links that outlive membership.

1052
00:42:03,900 –> 00:42:08,380
A purview expert who doesn’t understand maker ecosystems will deploy DLP while data

1053
00:42:08,380 –> 00:42:11,220
walks out through connectors inside personal flows.

1054
00:42:11,220 –> 00:42:12,220
Everyone is competent.

1055
00:42:12,220 –> 00:42:16,660
The system still fails because competence at the tool level doesn’t include responsibility

1056
00:42:16,660 –> 00:42:19,060
for cross service outcomes.

1057
00:42:19,060 –> 00:42:20,660
Certifications teach you what the setting does.

1058
00:42:20,660 –> 00:42:24,100
They don’t teach you what the setting causes when combined with the rest of your tenants

1059
00:42:24,100 –> 00:42:27,380
accumulated decisions and that’s what governance is causality.

1060
00:42:27,380 –> 00:42:32,500
This is why tool first employees default to the same pattern, more toggles, more blocks,

1061
00:42:32,500 –> 00:42:33,500
more exceptions.

1062
00:42:33,500 –> 00:42:36,020
They think progress equals configuration change.

1063
00:42:36,020 –> 00:42:40,380
They measure success by we deployed a policy, we enabled the feature, we turned off the

1064
00:42:40,380 –> 00:42:41,380
thing.

1065
00:42:41,380 –> 00:42:43,740
That is not governance, that is activity.

1066
00:42:43,740 –> 00:42:48,260
Governance is whether the tenant keeps producing the intended behavior after reorganizations,

1067
00:42:48,260 –> 00:42:52,340
turnover acquisitions, new apps, new connectors and the slow creep of exceptions.

1068
00:42:52,340 –> 00:42:55,180
That’s the difference between a deterministic model and a probabilistic one.

1069
00:42:55,180 –> 00:42:58,860
A deterministic model is when you can predict outcomes from design.

1070
00:42:58,860 –> 00:43:01,820
If we do X then Y happens and we know who owns Y.

1071
00:43:01,820 –> 00:43:05,780
A probabilistic model is when your security posture depends on which exception got added

1072
00:43:05,780 –> 00:43:09,100
last quarter and whether anyone remembers it exists.

1073
00:43:09,100 –> 00:43:12,700
Certifications are not designed to build deterministic governance capability.

1074
00:43:12,700 –> 00:43:17,020
They are designed to teach you the feature set, which means organizations that hire purely

1075
00:43:17,020 –> 00:43:21,980
for Microsoft expertise keep creating the same workforce shape, a set of silo product

1076
00:43:21,980 –> 00:43:25,980
experts who can keep the lights on but cannot enforce intent at scale.

1077
00:43:25,980 –> 00:43:29,540
And the platform doesn’t care about your lights, it cares about your authorization graph.

1078
00:43:29,540 –> 00:43:32,540
Now layer in the executive failure that completes the trap.

1079
00:43:32,540 –> 00:43:34,620
Leaders equate a credential with judgment.

1080
00:43:34,620 –> 00:43:39,940
They assume that a certified person can answer the hardest question in Microsoft 365 governance.

1081
00:43:39,940 –> 00:43:41,620
What breaks if we change this?

1082
00:43:41,620 –> 00:43:45,260
Most can’t because that’s not a portal question, that’s a systems question.

1083
00:43:45,260 –> 00:43:50,580
It requires understanding dependency chains, blast radius, user behavior incentives and

1084
00:43:50,580 –> 00:43:51,740
the cost of friction.

1085
00:43:51,740 –> 00:43:55,540
It requires an architect’s mindset and that mindset is not delivered by passing an exam.

1086
00:43:55,540 –> 00:43:57,220
This isn’t an attack on certifications.

1087
00:43:57,220 –> 00:44:00,740
They’re useful, they help people start, they create a shared vocabulary, they prevent

1088
00:44:00,740 –> 00:44:02,300
complete incompetence.

1089
00:44:02,300 –> 00:44:03,980
But they are not governance capability.

1090
00:44:03,980 –> 00:44:09,180
They do not create people who can own outcomes across identity collaboration, data and automation.

1091
00:44:09,180 –> 00:44:13,700
So when leadership keeps funding more training as the solution, they’re funding the wrong thing.

1092
00:44:13,700 –> 00:44:15,380
Training increases feature fluency.

1093
00:44:15,380 –> 00:44:18,060
It does not fix the missing operating model.

1094
00:44:18,060 –> 00:44:20,420
It does not create ownership where none exists.

1095
00:44:20,420 –> 00:44:23,900
It does not establish cadence, feedback loops or decision authority.

1096
00:44:23,900 –> 00:44:26,300
It does not turn tool admins into system governors.

1097
00:44:26,300 –> 00:44:29,700
Here’s the uncomfortable conversion that needs to happen in your organization.

1098
00:44:29,700 –> 00:44:33,500
Stop hiring for product expertise as if Microsoft 365 is a product.

1099
00:44:33,500 –> 00:44:34,500
It’s a platform.

1100
00:44:34,500 –> 00:44:36,580
The platform’s require reasoning.

1101
00:44:36,580 –> 00:44:40,220
And if you don’t hire for reasoning, you’ll keep hiring people who can only operate within

1102
00:44:40,220 –> 00:44:41,660
the boundaries of their portal.

1103
00:44:41,660 –> 00:44:44,900
They will solve local pain by moving risk somewhere else.

1104
00:44:44,900 –> 00:44:47,580
They will implement controls without owning consequences.

1105
00:44:47,580 –> 00:44:51,700
They will create the exact governance debt that looks like progress in admin centers.

1106
00:44:51,700 –> 00:44:54,340
That’s why the tool dashboards look busy while the tenant drifts.

1107
00:44:54,340 –> 00:44:57,060
This is also why committees get populated by the wrong people.

1108
00:44:57,060 –> 00:45:01,020
You invite the certified specialists because they know the tools.

1109
00:45:01,020 –> 00:45:03,580
Then they bring tool answers to system questions.

1110
00:45:03,580 –> 00:45:08,180
Then governance becomes a negotiation between portal owners instead of an enforcement model

1111
00:45:08,180 –> 00:45:10,220
and nothing changes.

1112
00:45:10,220 –> 00:45:12,780
So the fix starts with a simple mental rule.

1113
00:45:12,780 –> 00:45:14,700
Certifications qualify someone to touch settings.

1114
00:45:14,700 –> 00:45:17,100
They do not qualify someone to define intent.

1115
00:45:17,100 –> 00:45:20,580
The moment you treat them as equivalent, you guarantee conditional chaos.

1116
00:45:20,580 –> 00:45:21,900
And that’s the transition point.

1117
00:45:21,900 –> 00:45:24,700
Because once you understand this trap, you can deploy the knife.

1118
00:45:24,700 –> 00:45:29,140
The litmus test that exposes whether your organization is operating a governed platform

1119
00:45:29,140 –> 00:45:32,500
or just a collection of certified button clickers.

1120
00:45:32,500 –> 00:45:34,700
The litmus test leaders should use.

1121
00:45:34,700 –> 00:45:36,580
Here’s the litmus test leaders should use.

1122
00:45:36,580 –> 00:45:40,660
And it’s going to make people squirm because it exposes whether your organization understands

1123
00:45:40,660 –> 00:45:42,620
systems or just portals.

1124
00:45:42,620 –> 00:45:44,340
Ask this slowly.

1125
00:45:44,340 –> 00:45:48,220
If this setting changes today, who feels the impact first and how would we know?

1126
00:45:48,220 –> 00:45:49,220
Not what breaks.

1127
00:45:49,220 –> 00:45:51,540
That’s too technical and it invites guesses.

1128
00:45:51,540 –> 00:45:52,540
Who feels it first?

1129
00:45:52,540 –> 00:45:53,540
And how would we know?

1130
00:45:53,540 –> 00:45:57,940
That distinction matters because governance is not the ability to recover after a surprise.

1131
00:45:57,940 –> 00:46:01,340
Governance is the ability to predict blast radius before you pull the lever.

1132
00:46:01,340 –> 00:46:02,340
Now listen to the answer.

1133
00:46:02,340 –> 00:46:05,580
The wrong answers arrive fast and they all sound the same.

1134
00:46:05,580 –> 00:46:06,900
Teams will be impacted.

1135
00:46:06,900 –> 00:46:08,380
SharePoint will be impacted.

1136
00:46:08,380 –> 00:46:10,060
The help desk will get tickets.

1137
00:46:10,060 –> 00:46:11,780
We’ll check the admin center.

1138
00:46:11,780 –> 00:46:13,060
We’ll look at the logs.

1139
00:46:13,060 –> 00:46:14,060
Those are not answers.

1140
00:46:14,060 –> 00:46:16,420
They’re also confessions.

1141
00:46:16,420 –> 00:46:21,020
Confessions that nobody has connected policy to outcomes and nobody has built observability

1142
00:46:21,020 –> 00:46:23,900
that maps platform behavior back to business reality.

1143
00:46:23,900 –> 00:46:27,820
A tool first mind answers with tool names because tool names are the only mental model they

1144
00:46:27,820 –> 00:46:28,820
have.

1145
00:46:28,820 –> 00:46:31,780
They don’t know who is affected, only which portal contains the toggle.

1146
00:46:31,780 –> 00:46:34,340
They don’t know how they know because they don’t have a signal path.

1147
00:46:34,340 –> 00:46:35,740
They have an after-action scramble.

1148
00:46:35,740 –> 00:46:39,500
A slightly better but still failing answer is it depends.

1149
00:46:39,500 –> 00:46:41,860
It doesn’t.

1150
00:46:41,860 –> 00:46:45,700
In a govern tenant the impact pathways are known because they are designed and monitored.

1151
00:46:45,700 –> 00:46:48,940
The system is deterministic because your intent is enforced.

1152
00:46:48,940 –> 00:46:53,660
Now here’s what a good answer sounds like and it should feel almost boring in its precision.

1153
00:46:53,660 –> 00:46:57,260
The finance approvers feel it first because invoice workflow start failing.

1154
00:46:57,260 –> 00:47:00,980
We’d know within five minutes because the approval queue backlog spikes in the flow run

1155
00:47:00,980 –> 00:47:03,100
failure rate crosses the threshold.

1156
00:47:03,100 –> 00:47:08,260
Or external partners feel it first because guest access to project workspaces gets blocked.

1157
00:47:08,260 –> 00:47:12,880
We’d know because guests sign in failures and link access failures rise and the exception

1158
00:47:12,880 –> 00:47:16,020
register gets new requests with the same signature.

1159
00:47:16,020 –> 00:47:21,300
Or legal feels it first because retention holds stop applying to a set of content types.

1160
00:47:21,300 –> 00:47:25,740
We’d know because the retention policy simulation report deviates from expected coverage and

1161
00:47:25,740 –> 00:47:28,300
e-discovery exports show missing items.

1162
00:47:28,300 –> 00:47:32,580
Notice the pattern, its business function first, then observable signal, then evidence pathway

1163
00:47:32,580 –> 00:47:33,580
that’s governance.

1164
00:47:33,580 –> 00:47:35,740
And it’s why most organizations don’t like this question.

1165
00:47:35,740 –> 00:47:40,760
It forces them to admit that they run Microsoft 365 like a superstition, don’t touch anything

1166
00:47:40,760 –> 00:47:42,620
because nobody knows what happens if they do.

1167
00:47:42,620 –> 00:47:46,180
Now how do you use this question without turning every meeting into a defensive incident

1168
00:47:46,180 –> 00:47:47,180
review?

1169
00:47:47,180 –> 00:47:49,820
You don’t ask it as an accusation, you ask it as a design requirement.

1170
00:47:49,820 –> 00:47:54,860
Pick one high impact control area per leadership review, identity, collaboration, automation

1171
00:47:54,860 –> 00:47:55,860
or compliance.

1172
00:47:55,860 –> 00:47:58,420
Then ask the question about one specific change.

1173
00:47:58,420 –> 00:48:00,740
Not hypotheticals, real things you have touched before.

1174
00:48:00,740 –> 00:48:04,700
A conditional access policy change, a sharing setting, a DLP rule adjustment, a power

1175
00:48:04,700 –> 00:48:08,220
platform environment change, then require three outputs.

1176
00:48:08,220 –> 00:48:13,020
One, the impacted business function, two, the earliest measurable signal, three, the owner

1177
00:48:13,020 –> 00:48:15,980
of the signal and the decision authority to act.

1178
00:48:15,980 –> 00:48:19,620
If any of those three are missing, you have found a governance gap, not a tooling gap,

1179
00:48:19,620 –> 00:48:21,300
a people and accountability gap.

1180
00:48:21,300 –> 00:48:25,340
This is the part where leaders usually default back to comfort and say, so we need better

1181
00:48:25,340 –> 00:48:26,340
documentation.

1182
00:48:26,340 –> 00:48:28,540
No, documentation is a storage format.

1183
00:48:28,540 –> 00:48:30,020
It does not produce accountability.

1184
00:48:30,020 –> 00:48:31,820
You need ownership and feedback loops.

1185
00:48:31,820 –> 00:48:35,940
You need someone whose job is to know the impact pathways and keep them current as the tenant

1186
00:48:35,940 –> 00:48:36,940
drifts.

1187
00:48:36,940 –> 00:48:39,580
You need routine review of exceptions, not annual panic.

1188
00:48:39,580 –> 00:48:43,340
And you need observability that answers the question before the tickets arrive.

1189
00:48:43,340 –> 00:48:47,300
Because if the first time you learn about impact is when users complain, you are not governing

1190
00:48:47,300 –> 00:48:48,300
a platform.

1191
00:48:48,300 –> 00:48:51,500
You are reacting to a distributed decision engine you don’t control.

1192
00:48:51,500 –> 00:48:54,500
So use the litmus test as a recurring executive requirement.

1193
00:48:54,500 –> 00:48:55,700
It’s not a one time gotcha.

1194
00:48:55,700 –> 00:48:59,260
It’s the standard for whether a proposed change is ready to enter production.

1195
00:48:59,260 –> 00:49:02,380
And if the organization can’t answer it, the change isn’t ready.

1196
00:49:02,380 –> 00:49:06,460
Not because the people are bad, because the system is unowned and unowned systems always

1197
00:49:06,460 –> 00:49:08,500
drift toward conditional chaos.

1198
00:49:08,500 –> 00:49:12,620
The system first governance model, intent enforcement feedback.

1199
00:49:12,620 –> 00:49:16,380
So if the litmus test exposes the gap, what replaces the tool first mess?

1200
00:49:16,380 –> 00:49:20,900
The system first governance model, three parts, intent enforcement feedback, not a committee,

1201
00:49:20,900 –> 00:49:24,700
not a portal tour, a model that matches how the platform actually behaves.

1202
00:49:24,700 –> 00:49:25,860
Start with intent.

1203
00:49:25,860 –> 00:49:29,260
It is not we want to be secure or we want to collaborate.

1204
00:49:29,260 –> 00:49:30,260
That’s not intent.

1205
00:49:30,260 –> 00:49:32,300
That’s aspiration.

1206
00:49:32,300 –> 00:49:36,940
Intent is a set of constraints the business agrees to live inside, which data classes exist,

1207
00:49:36,940 –> 00:49:42,340
who can access them, how they move and what the acceptable failure modes are.

1208
00:49:42,340 –> 00:49:46,460
Intent has to be expressed in business language first because the business is the only entity

1209
00:49:46,460 –> 00:49:48,660
that can accept business risk.

1210
00:49:48,660 –> 00:49:52,900
Security can recommend, IT can implement, compliance can interpret regulation, but only

1211
00:49:52,900 –> 00:49:57,580
the business can say yes, we accept that external partners can access this class of content

1212
00:49:57,580 –> 00:50:01,060
under these conditions or no, this data never leaves our boundary.

1213
00:50:01,060 –> 00:50:05,100
If you can’t articulate that, you don’t have governance, you have preferences and intent

1214
00:50:05,100 –> 00:50:09,660
has to be specific enough that it can be enforced without constant negotiation, which brings

1215
00:50:09,660 –> 00:50:11,380
us to the second part.

1216
00:50:11,380 –> 00:50:12,380
Enforcement.

1217
00:50:12,380 –> 00:50:15,700
Enforcement is where most organizations think governance ends because they confuse policy

1218
00:50:15,700 –> 00:50:17,820
exists with policy works.

1219
00:50:17,820 –> 00:50:22,020
Enforcement means defaults that compile your intent into predictable tenant behavior.

1220
00:50:22,020 –> 00:50:25,900
Enforcement defaults that don’t rely on every admin remembering to do the right thing.

1221
00:50:25,900 –> 00:50:28,580
Defaults that don’t rely on every user caring.

1222
00:50:28,580 –> 00:50:32,340
In architectural terms, enforcement is how you keep the platform deterministic.

1223
00:50:32,340 –> 00:50:35,460
It’s where you stop asking, did we configure it correctly?

1224
00:50:35,460 –> 00:50:40,820
And start asking, does the platform behave correctly even when people take shortcuts?

1225
00:50:40,820 –> 00:50:43,780
That’s why enforcement isn’t just turn on MFA.

1226
00:50:43,780 –> 00:50:49,380
It’s boundary design, identity boundaries, time-bound privilege, explicit role scoping, sponsor

1227
00:50:49,380 –> 00:50:54,260
ownership and routine entitlement reviews that are operational, not seasonal.

1228
00:50:54,260 –> 00:50:58,740
Collaboration boundaries, defined creation paths, templates with default labeling, default

1229
00:50:58,740 –> 00:51:02,740
external access posture and life cycle mechanisms that prevent offending.

1230
00:51:02,740 –> 00:51:08,220
Data boundaries labels as enforcement contracts, not taxonomy, DLP that maps to real data classes

1231
00:51:08,220 –> 00:51:14,020
and real workflows, retention that maps to life cycle ownership, not legal superstition.

1232
00:51:14,020 –> 00:51:18,100
Automation boundaries, environment strategy that reflects sensitivity tiers, connector

1233
00:51:18,100 –> 00:51:23,220
controls that prevent cross boundary leakage and governance that treats flows as executable

1234
00:51:23,220 –> 00:51:25,540
systems, not personal experiments.

1235
00:51:25,540 –> 00:51:30,180
And here’s the phrase that’s going to irritate the right people, least reasonable access,

1236
00:51:30,180 –> 00:51:32,980
not least privilege in the abstract, least reasonable access.

1237
00:51:32,980 –> 00:51:37,100
The minimum access that still allows the business to function without immediately creating

1238
00:51:37,100 –> 00:51:41,460
a workaround economy because if your enforcement model creates enough friction, users won’t

1239
00:51:41,460 –> 00:51:42,460
comply.

1240
00:51:42,460 –> 00:51:46,300
They’ll root around it and Microsoft 365 has endless rooting options, so enforcement

1241
00:51:46,300 –> 00:51:52,860
must be usable, not user friendly, usable under pressure, which leads to the third part,

1242
00:51:52,860 –> 00:51:53,860
feedback.

1243
00:51:53,860 –> 00:51:58,060
Feedback is where governance either becomes real or becomes theater.

1244
00:51:58,060 –> 00:52:02,620
Feedback means you can observe drift exceptions and failure patterns as routine signals, not

1245
00:52:02,620 –> 00:52:06,180
as incidents, not as audit discoveries as normal health telemetry.

1246
00:52:06,180 –> 00:52:10,980
This is the core misunderstanding, policies drift by default, exceptions accumulate, owners

1247
00:52:10,980 –> 00:52:15,060
change, new apps appear, new connectors get added, new sharing links spread, your intent

1248
00:52:15,060 –> 00:52:17,940
does not stay enforced unless you measure erosion.

1249
00:52:17,940 –> 00:52:22,500
So feedback looks like this, you have a decision lock, not a slide deck, you have an exception

1250
00:52:22,500 –> 00:52:27,300
register, not will remember you have drift detection, not will review later.

1251
00:52:27,300 –> 00:52:31,540
And you have an operational cadence that forces the tenant back toward intent before entropy

1252
00:52:31,540 –> 00:52:37,540
wins, monthly system health, exceptions, privilege access changes, workspace sprawl rates,

1253
00:52:37,540 –> 00:52:43,180
DLP outcomes, automation boundary violations, quarterly, blast radius reviews, what changed,

1254
00:52:43,180 –> 00:52:47,980
drifted, what silently broke, what workarounds emerged and what policies lost credibility.

1255
00:52:47,980 –> 00:52:51,820
And no, this is not bureaucracy, this is entropy management, it’s the cost of running a

1256
00:52:51,820 –> 00:52:56,020
platform, because without feedback enforcement decays and without enforcement intent becomes

1257
00:52:56,020 –> 00:52:57,020
a slogan.

1258
00:52:57,020 –> 00:52:59,980
Now connect this back to the people problem because that’s the whole point.

1259
00:52:59,980 –> 00:53:04,420
Tool first organizations assign ownership to portals, system first organizations assign

1260
00:53:04,420 –> 00:53:09,900
ownership to outcomes, tool first governance asks who manages team settings, system first

1261
00:53:09,900 –> 00:53:14,700
governance asks who owns information flow integrity from creation to deletion across every

1262
00:53:14,700 –> 00:53:19,740
surface the platform exposes, that distinction matters because Microsoft 365 doesn’t reward

1263
00:53:19,740 –> 00:53:22,180
your org chart, it rewards your operating model.

1264
00:53:22,180 –> 00:53:26,380
And if your operating model doesn’t define intent, enforced by default and detect drift

1265
00:53:26,380 –> 00:53:30,740
continuously, the platform will do what it always does in the absence of enforced intent,

1266
00:53:30,740 –> 00:53:35,700
it will accept your exceptions, it will compile your contradictions and it will produce outcomes

1267
00:53:35,700 –> 00:53:37,220
you can’t defend.

1268
00:53:37,220 –> 00:53:42,180
No reset, retire tool roles, appoint system governors, if you want this to stop being a recurring

1269
00:53:42,180 –> 00:53:46,500
incident pattern you don’t start in the admin centers, you start in the org chart because

1270
00:53:46,500 –> 00:53:50,900
the platform doesn’t care who owns teams, it doesn’t care who runs SharePoint, it doesn’t

1271
00:53:50,900 –> 00:53:55,340
care that you hire the purview person, those are job titles that make humans feel organized,

1272
00:53:55,340 –> 00:54:00,300
they don’t map to how Microsoft 365 behaves, the first move is retiring the mental roles

1273
00:54:00,300 –> 00:54:05,260
that exist only because of portal exists teams owner SharePoint admin purview person power

1274
00:54:05,260 –> 00:54:06,780
platform maker.

1275
00:54:06,780 –> 00:54:11,300
Those labels aren’t inherently wrong, they’re incomplete, they describe where someone clicks,

1276
00:54:11,300 –> 00:54:13,220
not what outcome they are responsible for.

1277
00:54:13,220 –> 00:54:17,300
And the moment responsibility is defined by which portal someone logs into, you have already

1278
00:54:17,300 –> 00:54:19,380
accepted fragmented ownership.

1279
00:54:19,380 –> 00:54:22,900
Fragmented ownership becomes conditional chaos, so here’s the replacement rule and it needs

1280
00:54:22,900 –> 00:54:26,420
to be set out loud because it’s the kind of sentence that forces a decision.

1281
00:54:26,420 –> 00:54:30,420
If your role exists because a tool exists, it is not a governance role, a governance role

1282
00:54:30,420 –> 00:54:35,460
exists because of failure mode exists, because of risk exists, because of flow exists,

1283
00:54:35,460 –> 00:54:37,660
because a life cycle exists.

1284
00:54:37,660 –> 00:54:41,940
So the role reset is simple, stop assigning tool owners, start appointing system governors,

1285
00:54:41,940 –> 00:54:46,860
a system governor is accountable for an end to end outcome across services, even when

1286
00:54:46,860 –> 00:54:51,820
those services are owned by different teams, even when the configuration lives in different

1287
00:54:51,820 –> 00:54:56,420
admin centers and even when the failure shows up in the business before it shows up in

1288
00:54:56,420 –> 00:54:59,100
your logs, that’s the actual job.

1289
00:54:59,100 –> 00:55:03,540
Now people immediately ask the wrong question, so who owns everything, nobody, but someone

1290
00:55:03,540 –> 00:55:07,780
must own the outcome and that’s where you divide governance by integrity domains, not by

1291
00:55:07,780 –> 00:55:13,380
products, access integrity, information flow integrity, automation integrity.

1292
00:55:13,380 –> 00:55:16,820
Those are the three pathways where governance erodes, where incidents are born and where

1293
00:55:16,820 –> 00:55:20,660
the business experiences pain, those are also the three areas where you can measure drift

1294
00:55:20,660 –> 00:55:22,260
without lying to yourself.

1295
00:55:22,260 –> 00:55:25,500
So the first expectation shift is accountability must be end to end.

1296
00:55:25,500 –> 00:55:29,620
If someone owns teams creation, they also own the consequences in SharePoint, they also

1297
00:55:29,620 –> 00:55:32,860
own the guest posture, they also own the life cycle triggers.

1298
00:55:32,860 –> 00:55:35,500
They also own the naming and classification defaults.

1299
00:55:35,500 –> 00:55:39,540
If they don’t, then they don’t own teams creation, they own a switch, that’s not governance.

1300
00:55:39,540 –> 00:55:43,700
Now the second expectation shift is governance roles must be empowered to say no without becoming

1301
00:55:43,700 –> 00:55:44,700
a committee.

1302
00:55:44,700 –> 00:55:48,860
This is where most organizations self sabotage, they create a governance committee because

1303
00:55:48,860 –> 00:55:53,780
it feels safe, it distributes responsibility, it also destroys decision speed, it becomes

1304
00:55:53,780 –> 00:55:57,980
an entropy sink where exceptions accumulate because nobody has authority to reject them,

1305
00:55:57,980 –> 00:55:58,980
only to debate them.

1306
00:55:58,980 –> 00:56:02,740
So system governors need decision authority and they need it scoped.

1307
00:56:02,740 –> 00:56:06,300
Infinite power clear domains, they must be able to set defaults, they must be able to

1308
00:56:06,300 –> 00:56:11,500
approve or deny exceptions, they must be able to declare a pattern out of policy and force

1309
00:56:11,500 –> 00:56:15,900
a redesign, not just a workaround and when an exception is approved, it must be treated

1310
00:56:15,900 –> 00:56:20,420
as a risk event with a sponsor, an expiration date, an observable signal.

1311
00:56:20,420 –> 00:56:23,460
Otherwise you are just writing future drift into your tenant on purpose.

1312
00:56:23,460 –> 00:56:27,580
Now how do these roles collaborate without turning into a bureaucracy factory?

1313
00:56:27,580 –> 00:56:30,740
They collaborate through a contract, not through endless meetings.

1314
00:56:30,740 –> 00:56:32,900
A platform contract.

1315
00:56:32,900 –> 00:56:37,540
This contract defines the intent, data classes, external access posture, privileged access

1316
00:56:37,540 –> 00:56:41,700
posture, life cycle expectations and where automation is allowed to run, then each governor

1317
00:56:41,700 –> 00:56:45,780
enforces their part of that contract, the identity and access steward enforces access

1318
00:56:45,780 –> 00:56:51,060
integrity, the information flow owner enforces life cycle and data movement integrity across

1319
00:56:51,060 –> 00:56:53,340
teams, sharepoint and one drive.

1320
00:56:53,340 –> 00:56:57,620
The automation integrity owner enforces environment boundaries, connector boundaries and continuity

1321
00:56:57,620 –> 00:56:59,500
ownership for flows and apps.

1322
00:56:59,500 –> 00:57:04,180
But above them there is one role that must exist or the whole system collapses, a platform

1323
00:57:04,180 –> 00:57:09,260
governance lead, not a chairperson, not a facilitator, the accountable owner of cross-service

1324
00:57:09,260 –> 00:57:13,500
outcomes, the person who can arbitrate conflicts and the person who owns drift as a first-class

1325
00:57:13,500 –> 00:57:14,500
problem.

1326
00:57:14,500 –> 00:57:17,860
Because without that your governors become specialists again and your specialists will do

1327
00:57:17,860 –> 00:57:19,360
what specialists always do.

1328
00:57:19,360 –> 00:57:22,180
They optimize locally, they create global fragility.

1329
00:57:22,180 –> 00:57:26,300
Now the final shift is you stop treating governance as something done to the business, you

1330
00:57:26,300 –> 00:57:30,380
do it with the business because the business is where the consequences land first.

1331
00:57:30,380 –> 00:57:34,140
If you don’t have business aligned ownership for entitlements, you will keep granting roles

1332
00:57:34,140 –> 00:57:35,180
for speed.

1333
00:57:35,180 –> 00:57:39,260
If you don’t have business aligned ownership for information flow, you will keep accumulating

1334
00:57:39,260 –> 00:57:40,820
often workspaces.

1335
00:57:40,820 –> 00:57:44,780
If you don’t have business aligned ownership for automation, you will keep running invisible

1336
00:57:44,780 –> 00:57:47,220
production processes in the default environment.

1337
00:57:47,220 –> 00:57:48,860
This is not controversial.

1338
00:57:48,860 –> 00:57:50,180
It’s observable.

1339
00:57:50,180 –> 00:57:54,060
And once you do the role reset, you get to the part leaders actually care about.

1340
00:57:54,060 –> 00:57:59,300
A governance cadence that reduces exceptions, speeds, decisions and shrinks blast radius

1341
00:57:59,300 –> 00:58:01,300
without creating a ticket economy.

1342
00:58:01,300 –> 00:58:03,380
Rule one, platform governance lead.

1343
00:58:03,380 –> 00:58:07,060
The platform governance lead is the role most organizations refuse to create because

1344
00:58:07,060 –> 00:58:09,020
it forces a simple admission.

1345
00:58:09,020 –> 00:58:11,820
Microsoft 365 is one system and your org chart is not.

1346
00:58:11,820 –> 00:58:15,780
So instead they distribute governance across tool owners and hope coordination will emerge

1347
00:58:15,780 –> 00:58:16,780
from goodwill.

1348
00:58:16,780 –> 00:58:17,780
It won’t.

1349
00:58:17,780 –> 00:58:18,740
Goodwill is not an operating model.

1350
00:58:18,740 –> 00:58:22,420
This role exists to do one thing, own cross-service outcomes.

1351
00:58:22,420 –> 00:58:25,540
It’s support, not advise, own.

1352
00:58:25,540 –> 00:58:30,660
Because every meaningful governance decision in Microsoft 365 crosses boundaries, identity,

1353
00:58:30,660 –> 00:58:34,300
sharing, search, retention, external access and automation.

1354
00:58:34,300 –> 00:58:38,580
If no one owns the end-to-end outcome, the platform becomes a distributed decision engine

1355
00:58:38,580 –> 00:58:40,260
with no adult supervision.

1356
00:58:40,260 –> 00:58:42,620
The platform governance lead owns the platform contract.

1357
00:58:42,620 –> 00:58:48,060
A platform contract is the set of enforceable assumptions your organization believes are true.

1358
00:58:48,060 –> 00:58:49,820
Who can create workspaces?

1359
00:58:49,820 –> 00:58:51,860
What external collaboration looks like?

1360
00:58:51,860 –> 00:58:54,020
What confidential actually means?

1361
00:58:54,020 –> 00:58:55,020
What gets retained?

1362
00:58:55,020 –> 00:58:56,380
What gets deleted?

1363
00:58:56,380 –> 00:58:58,140
Where automation is allowed to run?

1364
00:58:58,140 –> 00:59:00,180
And how exceptions are handled?

1365
00:59:00,180 –> 00:59:01,500
Not written as a manifesto.

1366
00:59:01,500 –> 00:59:05,180
Written as constraints that can be implemented, monitored and defended.

1367
00:59:05,180 –> 00:59:07,260
And yes, that contract will make people unhappy.

1368
00:59:07,260 –> 00:59:08,260
That’s normal.

1369
00:59:08,260 –> 00:59:12,060
Governance is the formalization of trade-offs and trade-offs always create friction somewhere.

1370
00:59:12,060 –> 00:59:15,780
The platform governance lead owns that friction as a managed outcome.

1371
00:59:15,780 –> 00:59:16,980
Not a surprise.

1372
00:59:16,980 –> 00:59:20,740
This role shares governance decisions, but not as a committee facilitator.

1373
00:59:20,740 –> 00:59:22,060
These are entropy sinks.

1374
00:59:22,060 –> 00:59:25,860
The chair is accountable for the decision quality and the enforcement follow through.

1375
00:59:25,860 –> 00:59:28,340
So the meeting is not, let’s hear everyone’s feelings.

1376
00:59:28,340 –> 00:59:32,340
It’s, here is the proposed change, here is the blast radius, here are the impacted business

1377
00:59:32,340 –> 00:59:35,820
functions, here is the monitoring signal and here is the decision.

1378
00:59:35,820 –> 00:59:39,060
And if the system can’t answer those questions, the decision is not ready.

1379
00:59:39,060 –> 00:59:41,780
Not later, not will be careful, not, not ready.

1380
00:59:41,780 –> 00:59:46,140
This role treats exceptions as risk events, not as customer service.

1381
00:59:46,140 –> 00:59:49,300
Because an exception in Microsoft 365 is not a local deviation.

1382
00:59:49,300 –> 00:59:52,300
It is a permanent fork in your control plane until you remove it.

1383
00:59:52,300 –> 00:59:55,740
It accumulates, it gets copied, it becomes precedent, it becomes drift.

1384
00:59:55,740 –> 01:00:00,740
So every exception needs a sponsor, an expiration date, a measurable signal and a path back to

1385
01:00:00,740 –> 01:00:01,740
baseline.

1386
01:00:01,740 –> 01:00:05,180
If your exception process doesn’t include those you don’t have an exception process, you

1387
01:00:05,180 –> 01:00:06,980
have policy decay.

1388
01:00:06,980 –> 01:00:12,100
The platform governance lead also owns measurement of drift, not vanity dashboards.

1389
01:00:12,100 –> 01:00:17,500
Drift policy exception volume, workspace sprawl rates, often rates, privileged access,

1390
01:00:17,500 –> 01:00:22,820
spending time, external sharing events by data class, maker activity in non-approved environments.

1391
01:00:22,820 –> 01:00:26,580
DLP outcomes that represent real business risk, not just noise.

1392
01:00:26,580 –> 01:00:31,460
Because missing policies create obvious gaps, drifting policies create ambiguity.

1393
01:00:31,460 –> 01:00:35,260
Ambiguity creates workarounds and workarounds create incidents.

1394
01:00:35,260 –> 01:00:36,700
That distinction matters.

1395
01:00:36,700 –> 01:00:40,460
This role interlocks with security, legal and business leadership, but it doesn’t delegate

1396
01:00:40,460 –> 01:00:41,740
accountability to them.

1397
01:00:41,740 –> 01:00:44,260
It translates, it arbitrates, it enforces.

1398
01:00:44,260 –> 01:00:47,820
Security will always push for tighter controls, business will always push for speed, legal

1399
01:00:47,820 –> 01:00:49,580
will always push for defensibility.

1400
01:00:49,580 –> 01:00:50,860
Those are predictable forces.

1401
01:00:50,860 –> 01:00:55,180
The platform governance lead exists to convert those forces into a stable, enforceable,

1402
01:00:55,180 –> 01:00:59,140
tenant posture without turning every decision into a political negotiation.

1403
01:00:59,140 –> 01:01:03,780
And this role must be empowered to say a sentence most organizations forbid, no, not like

1404
01:01:03,780 –> 01:01:04,780
that.

1405
01:01:04,780 –> 01:01:05,780
Not know you can’t.

1406
01:01:05,780 –> 01:01:06,780
That just creates shadow it.

1407
01:01:06,780 –> 01:01:07,780
No, not like that.

1408
01:01:07,780 –> 01:01:10,220
Here is the safe path that exists by design.

1409
01:01:10,220 –> 01:01:11,220
That’s the difference.

1410
01:01:11,220 –> 01:01:13,380
The platform governance lead doesn’t just block.

1411
01:01:13,380 –> 01:01:17,740
They design the govern pathway, then force the organization into it by making it faster

1412
01:01:17,740 –> 01:01:18,980
than the workaround.

1413
01:01:18,980 –> 01:01:21,220
Because the platform will always offer detours.

1414
01:01:21,220 –> 01:01:24,340
Your job is to make detours unnecessary, not merely forbidden.

1415
01:01:24,340 –> 01:01:25,340
Now a warning.

1416
01:01:25,340 –> 01:01:27,660
Do not turn this role into a senior admin with a new title.

1417
01:01:27,660 –> 01:01:30,740
That is how you get governance theatre with better slide decks.

1418
01:01:30,740 –> 01:01:34,020
The platform governance lead must operate at the system level.

1419
01:01:34,020 –> 01:01:37,700
Understanding the authorization graph, understanding cross-service coupling, understanding

1420
01:01:37,700 –> 01:01:42,780
where policy erodes, and understanding how humans behave when controls create friction.

1421
01:01:42,780 –> 01:01:45,780
That’s why this role isn’t defined by portal access.

1422
01:01:45,780 –> 01:01:47,340
It’s defined by outcome ownership.

1423
01:01:47,340 –> 01:01:50,460
If you want a simple test to know if you hired the right person, they don’t start with

1424
01:01:50,460 –> 01:01:51,860
we need to configure.

1425
01:01:51,860 –> 01:01:54,420
They start with what behavior are we trying to force?

1426
01:01:54,420 –> 01:01:57,300
And what is the platform currently incentivizing instead?

1427
01:01:57,300 –> 01:02:01,060
And then they design the default, so the platform stops rewarding the wrong behavior, because

1428
01:02:01,060 –> 01:02:03,540
Microsoft 365 doesn’t need more admins.

1429
01:02:03,540 –> 01:02:07,620
It needs one person whose job is to prevent the tenant from becoming an ungoverned democracy

1430
01:02:07,620 –> 01:02:09,100
of settings.

1431
01:02:09,100 –> 01:02:11,260
Roll two, identity and access steward.

1432
01:02:11,260 –> 01:02:15,140
The platform governance lead owns the contract, but contracts don’t enforce themselves.

1433
01:02:15,140 –> 01:02:19,940
If nobody owns identity as a living entitlement system, your entire governance model collapses

1434
01:02:19,940 –> 01:02:21,340
into wishful thinking.

1435
01:02:21,340 –> 01:02:24,220
That’s what the identity and access steward is for.

1436
01:02:24,220 –> 01:02:28,460
This role is not the entry admin, it is not the conditional access person.

1437
01:02:28,460 –> 01:02:30,900
And it is definitely not whoever knows MFA.

1438
01:02:30,900 –> 01:02:34,860
This role owns access integrity as a business align system.

1439
01:02:34,860 –> 01:02:38,220
Entitlements, privilege, external identities, and the blast radius that comes with all

1440
01:02:38,220 –> 01:02:39,220
of them.

1441
01:02:39,220 –> 01:02:43,380
Identity isn’t a feature, it is the control play in the rest of Microsoft 365 compiles

1442
01:02:43,380 –> 01:02:44,380
against.

1443
01:02:44,380 –> 01:02:48,180
And if you let identity drift, every downstream system becomes probabilistic.

1444
01:02:48,180 –> 01:02:50,940
The identity and access steward starts with a simple premise.

1445
01:02:50,940 –> 01:02:53,220
Access is not granted because someone asked.

1446
01:02:53,220 –> 01:02:57,420
Access is granted because a business role requires it, and that requirement is documented,

1447
01:02:57,420 –> 01:02:58,780
reviewed, and reversible.

1448
01:02:58,780 –> 01:02:59,780
That sounds obvious.

1449
01:02:59,780 –> 01:03:01,580
It is not how most tenants operate.

1450
01:03:01,580 –> 01:03:04,220
Most tenants still run on informal entitlement logic.

1451
01:03:04,220 –> 01:03:06,860
Someone joins a project, someone adds them to a group.

1452
01:03:06,860 –> 01:03:09,180
And gives them a role just for today.

1453
01:03:09,180 –> 01:03:10,660
And nobody ever removes it.

1454
01:03:10,660 –> 01:03:12,020
People call that being helpful.

1455
01:03:12,020 –> 01:03:13,020
It’s not.

1456
01:03:13,020 –> 01:03:14,340
It’s an entropy generator.

1457
01:03:14,340 –> 01:03:17,100
So the steward builds a business aligned entitlement model.

1458
01:03:17,100 –> 01:03:21,340
Job roles mapped to group membership, group membership mapped to access, access mapped to

1459
01:03:21,340 –> 01:03:25,740
data classes and workloads, not as an academic exercise, as a way to ensure access follows

1460
01:03:25,740 –> 01:03:29,180
organizational reality, not historical accidents.

1461
01:03:29,180 –> 01:03:32,820
Then they enforce a regular review cadence that is operational, not seasonal.

1462
01:03:32,820 –> 01:03:36,580
Access reviews are not a quarterly ritual performed in panic for auditors.

1463
01:03:36,580 –> 01:03:42,060
They are a routine mechanism that continuously removes stale access before it becomes invisible

1464
01:03:42,060 –> 01:03:43,060
risk.

1465
01:03:43,060 –> 01:03:46,420
If you only review access when someone asks you don’t have governance, you have guilt.

1466
01:03:46,420 –> 01:03:50,700
And the steward makes privileged access, non-standing by default.

1467
01:03:50,700 –> 01:03:52,420
Zero-standing privilege is not a slogan.

1468
01:03:52,420 –> 01:03:55,500
It’s the only model that survives real-world entropy.

1469
01:03:55,500 –> 01:03:57,300
People don’t lose access because they are bad.

1470
01:03:57,300 –> 01:04:00,580
They lose access because the organization changes and nobody cleans up.

1471
01:04:00,580 –> 01:04:05,500
So the steward enforces a world where elevation is time-bound, approval-driven, and visible.

1472
01:04:05,500 –> 01:04:08,740
If someone needs admin power they elevate, they don’t keep it.

1473
01:04:08,740 –> 01:04:12,300
If the platform makes that annoying, the steward fixes the design because if privileged

1474
01:04:12,300 –> 01:04:17,140
elevation is too painful, teams will create permanent admin assignments for speed and

1475
01:04:17,140 –> 01:04:20,260
the platform will silently accept your slow-motion failure.

1476
01:04:20,260 –> 01:04:23,220
This is also where blast radius thinking becomes mandatory.

1477
01:04:23,220 –> 01:04:26,260
One-entra-roll assignment is rarely just one-roll.

1478
01:04:26,260 –> 01:04:29,060
It creates a capability set that spans services.

1479
01:04:29,060 –> 01:04:33,060
If someone can manage groups, they can effectively change access in teams, SharePoint, Planner,

1480
01:04:33,060 –> 01:04:35,060
and anything grounded in that membership.

1481
01:04:35,060 –> 01:04:39,820
If someone can consent to apps or manage app registrations, they can create new authorization

1482
01:04:39,820 –> 01:04:41,300
edges into your tenant.

1483
01:04:41,300 –> 01:04:45,700
If someone can manage exchange settings, they can change information flow pathways that

1484
01:04:45,700 –> 01:04:46,860
compliance depends on.

1485
01:04:46,860 –> 01:04:49,540
So the steward doesn’t evaluate access by job title.

1486
01:04:49,540 –> 01:04:51,300
They evaluate it by consequence.

1487
01:04:51,300 –> 01:04:52,540
What can this identity do?

1488
01:04:52,540 –> 01:04:53,940
And what happens if it’s wrong?

1489
01:04:53,940 –> 01:04:55,140
That’s the real model.

1490
01:04:55,140 –> 01:04:59,140
Then there’s external access where most organizations pretend the problem is guest users

1491
01:04:59,140 –> 01:05:01,580
as if guests are the only outsiders who matter.

1492
01:05:01,580 –> 01:05:02,580
They’re not.

1493
01:05:02,580 –> 01:05:04,100
Guests are just the visible part.

1494
01:05:04,100 –> 01:05:08,840
Internal access includes B2B users, partner tenants, service principles, app registrations,

1495
01:05:08,840 –> 01:05:13,940
managed identities, and the endless creep of OAuth permissions that show up as consent requests

1496
01:05:13,940 –> 01:05:16,180
until someone clicks a proof.

1497
01:05:16,180 –> 01:05:17,860
Every one of those is an access pathway.

1498
01:05:17,860 –> 01:05:19,940
Every one of them has life cycle needs.

1499
01:05:19,940 –> 01:05:22,980
Every one of them becomes unknown if you don’t assign stewardship.

1500
01:05:22,980 –> 01:05:26,940
So the identity and access steward owns the external access posture as a single surface,

1501
01:05:26,940 –> 01:05:30,900
who can invite which domains are trusted, what the default restrictions are, how guests

1502
01:05:30,900 –> 01:05:34,700
expire, how sponsors are assigned, and how access is reviewed.

1503
01:05:34,700 –> 01:05:38,780
If guests can exist without a sponsor, you have already accepted often identities.

1504
01:05:38,780 –> 01:05:43,620
And often identities are worse than often teams because they can outlive context entirely.

1505
01:05:43,620 –> 01:05:47,980
Finally, this role is responsible for translating identity decisions into business risk language

1506
01:05:47,980 –> 01:05:49,340
leadership understands.

1507
01:05:49,340 –> 01:05:51,300
Not we enabled conditional access.

1508
01:05:51,300 –> 01:05:52,860
Not we assigned roles.

1509
01:05:52,860 –> 01:05:57,500
But we reduced standing privilege, we narrowed blast radius, we increased access review

1510
01:05:57,500 –> 01:06:01,140
completeness and we can prove who has access to what and why.

1511
01:06:01,140 –> 01:06:02,140
That’s the point.

1512
01:06:02,140 –> 01:06:04,940
If you want a quick indicator, you have the wrong person in this role.

1513
01:06:04,940 –> 01:06:09,900
They obsess over sign-in success and MFA prompts while ignoring entitlement, drift, and privilege

1514
01:06:09,900 –> 01:06:11,060
accumulation.

1515
01:06:11,060 –> 01:06:15,820
If you have the right person, they treat identity like a living system under constant pressure.

1516
01:06:15,820 –> 01:06:18,860
Because it is role three, information flow owner.

1517
01:06:18,860 –> 01:06:21,900
If identity is the control plane, information flow is the payload.

1518
01:06:21,900 –> 01:06:23,780
And most organizations don’t govern payload.

1519
01:06:23,780 –> 01:06:24,780
They govern containers.

1520
01:06:24,780 –> 01:06:26,420
They govern teams as a tool.

1521
01:06:26,420 –> 01:06:28,140
They govern sharepoint as storage.

1522
01:06:28,140 –> 01:06:30,420
They govern one drive as personal.

1523
01:06:30,420 –> 01:06:34,420
Then they act surprised when confidential data shows up in places nobody can explain.

1524
01:06:34,420 –> 01:06:37,140
The information flow owner exists to stop that.

1525
01:06:37,140 –> 01:06:41,820
This role owns the end-to-end life cycle of information across collaboration surfaces.

1526
01:06:41,820 –> 01:06:43,780
Create, collaborate, retain, delete.

1527
01:06:43,780 –> 01:06:44,940
Not as a policy memo.

1528
01:06:44,940 –> 01:06:49,220
As an operational system that produces predictable outcomes even when people change roles, projects

1529
01:06:49,220 –> 01:06:52,500
end and workspaces drift into often hood.

1530
01:06:52,500 –> 01:06:56,020
Because the platform doesn’t store files, and it stores decisions.

1531
01:06:56,020 –> 01:07:00,420
You can access, who can share, how links behave, what search can discover, what co-pilot

1532
01:07:00,420 –> 01:07:04,980
can ground on, what retention can preserve, that entire chain is an information flow problem,

1533
01:07:04,980 –> 01:07:06,460
not a sharepoint problem.

1534
01:07:06,460 –> 01:07:10,500
So the information flow owner starts by defining the flows that actually exist in the business,

1535
01:07:10,500 –> 01:07:15,380
not the ones IT wishes existed, project workspaces, department workspaces, client workspaces,

1536
01:07:15,380 –> 01:07:17,420
external collaboration workspaces.

1537
01:07:17,420 –> 01:07:19,740
Personal workspaces that have become shadow team drives.

1538
01:07:19,740 –> 01:07:21,900
Those flows must have entry points in exits.

1539
01:07:21,900 –> 01:07:26,060
Otherwise your tenant becomes a graveyard of half finished workspaces that never die and

1540
01:07:26,060 –> 01:07:27,380
never lose access.

1541
01:07:27,380 –> 01:07:31,260
The first operational responsibility is life cycle ownership.

1542
01:07:31,260 –> 01:07:35,340
A workspace gets created, who owns it and what happens when that owner leaves.

1543
01:07:35,340 –> 01:07:40,460
If your answer is, someone should update owners, you have already accepted often workspaces

1544
01:07:40,460 –> 01:07:41,980
as a normal state.

1545
01:07:41,980 –> 01:07:47,100
The information flow owner forces continuity by design, ownership transfer rules, exploration

1546
01:07:47,100 –> 01:07:50,900
mechanisms, and archival pathways that don’t require heroics.

1547
01:07:50,900 –> 01:07:54,180
The goal is simple, there is no such thing as an ownerless workspace.

1548
01:07:54,180 –> 01:07:55,180
Ever.

1549
01:07:55,180 –> 01:07:57,540
The second responsibility is classification enforcement.

1550
01:07:57,540 –> 01:07:59,860
Labels aren’t decoration, they are contracts.

1551
01:07:59,860 –> 01:08:03,020
A label must mean something about sharing, access, and life cycle.

1552
01:08:03,020 –> 01:08:06,460
Otherwise it’s just a taxonomy exercise that produces false confidence.

1553
01:08:06,460 –> 01:08:11,460
The information flow owner ensures classification maps to real behavior, what confidential means

1554
01:08:11,460 –> 01:08:16,780
for external sharing, what highly confidential means for guest access, what internal means

1555
01:08:16,780 –> 01:08:21,620
for anonymous links, and what each class implies for retention and disposal.

1556
01:08:21,620 –> 01:08:25,460
This is where most organizations fail because they deploy labels centrally and experience

1557
01:08:25,460 –> 01:08:27,060
them locally as friction.

1558
01:08:27,060 –> 01:08:29,620
So this role also owns usability.

1559
01:08:29,620 –> 01:08:33,140
Policies must be strict enough to matter and usable enough to prevent detours.

1560
01:08:33,140 –> 01:08:37,620
If users can’t collaborate inside the govern pathway, they will collaborate outside it.

1561
01:08:37,620 –> 01:08:40,820
And then your labels are meaningless because the data isn’t where you think it is, the

1562
01:08:40,820 –> 01:08:43,940
third responsibility is preventing inheritance drift.

1563
01:08:43,940 –> 01:08:46,740
SharePoint inheritance is not a feature, it’s a drift engine.

1564
01:08:46,740 –> 01:08:53,380
Permissions copy, libraries inherit, sites get broken inheritance, just this once.

1565
01:08:53,380 –> 01:08:56,980
Then nobody remembers what’s unique, what’s inherited, and what’s now effectively public

1566
01:08:56,980 –> 01:08:59,180
to half the company through nested groups.

1567
01:08:59,180 –> 01:09:03,460
The information flow owner owns the guardrails that keep permission models simple and

1568
01:09:03,460 –> 01:09:04,460
reviewable.

1569
01:09:04,460 –> 01:09:05,980
They don’t need to know every permission.

1570
01:09:05,980 –> 01:09:10,420
They need to prevent permission structures that cannot be audited or understood.

1571
01:09:10,420 –> 01:09:14,540
Because complex permission models don’t create security, they create ambiguity.

1572
01:09:14,540 –> 01:09:16,980
And ambiguity is where oversharing hides.

1573
01:09:16,980 –> 01:09:21,580
The fourth responsibility is consistency of user experience, not for the sake of aesthetics,

1574
01:09:21,580 –> 01:09:22,740
for the sake of governance.

1575
01:09:22,740 –> 01:09:28,420
If every department has a different workspace pattern, different naming, different navigation,

1576
01:09:28,420 –> 01:09:31,340
different sharing behavior, users will stop trusting the platform.

1577
01:09:31,340 –> 01:09:32,540
They will duplicate content.

1578
01:09:32,540 –> 01:09:33,740
They will send attachments.

1579
01:09:33,740 –> 01:09:35,740
They will keep their own source of truth.

1580
01:09:35,740 –> 01:09:40,220
That is how information flow becomes fragmented and fragmented flow becomes business risk.

1581
01:09:40,220 –> 01:09:43,820
So the information flow owner standardizes what must be standard.

1582
01:09:43,820 –> 01:09:48,580
Information patterns, naming and metadata, external sharing posture and life cycle triggers.

1583
01:09:48,580 –> 01:09:52,500
Then they allow local flexibility inside those boundaries, guardrails, not roadblocks.

1584
01:09:52,500 –> 01:09:56,260
The fifth responsibility is partnering with security and compliance without outsourcing

1585
01:09:56,260 –> 01:09:57,260
accountability.

1586
01:09:57,260 –> 01:09:59,580
DLP tuning is a shared activity.

1587
01:09:59,580 –> 01:10:03,900
But the information flow owner owns the business impact, where friction lands, what work

1588
01:10:03,900 –> 01:10:08,700
arounds appear, what exceptions are requested, and whether the controls are actually shaping

1589
01:10:08,700 –> 01:10:11,140
behavior or merely generating noise.

1590
01:10:11,140 –> 01:10:14,540
That distinction matters because the tenant is not governed by documentation.

1591
01:10:14,540 –> 01:10:16,780
It is governed by how people behave under pressure.

1592
01:10:16,780 –> 01:10:19,460
And this role is the one that owns that behavior shift.

1593
01:10:19,460 –> 01:10:24,140
If you can’t name this person in your organization, you don’t have an information governance program.

1594
01:10:24,140 –> 01:10:26,420
You have a set of policies that hope users will comply.

1595
01:10:26,420 –> 01:10:27,420
They won’t.

1596
01:10:27,420 –> 01:10:32,900
So the information flow owner turns collaboration from a set of apps into a controlled, observable

1597
01:10:32,900 –> 01:10:34,420
information life cycle.

1598
01:10:34,420 –> 01:10:38,700
That is the only way teams share point and one drive stop being your most expensive accidental

1599
01:10:38,700 –> 01:10:39,940
data lake.

1600
01:10:39,940 –> 01:10:43,100
Cadence, monthly health, quarterly blast radius.

1601
01:10:43,100 –> 01:10:47,020
Governance without cadence is just aspiration with a calendar invite that never happens.

1602
01:10:47,020 –> 01:10:49,300
If you don’t schedule governance, you don’t have governance.

1603
01:10:49,300 –> 01:10:54,740
You have intermittent guilt followed by panic followed by a cleanup project that gets deprioritized

1604
01:10:54,740 –> 01:10:56,460
the moment the incident fades.

1605
01:10:56,460 –> 01:10:59,380
A cadence is how you make intent survive entropy.

1606
01:10:59,380 –> 01:11:01,180
And it has to be boring on purpose.

1607
01:11:01,180 –> 01:11:05,220
Predictible, short, non-negotiable because the goal isn’t to create a governance culture.

1608
01:11:05,220 –> 01:11:09,500
The goal is to keep the tenant from drifting into conditional chaos while everyone is busy

1609
01:11:09,500 –> 01:11:10,980
doing their actual jobs.

1610
01:11:10,980 –> 01:11:15,860
So here’s the cadence that works because it matches how Microsoft 365 fails.

1611
01:11:15,860 –> 01:11:18,420
Monthly system health, quarterly blast radius.

1612
01:11:18,420 –> 01:11:20,300
Monthly system health is not a steering committee.

1613
01:11:20,300 –> 01:11:21,660
It’s not a strategy session.

1614
01:11:21,660 –> 01:11:25,060
It’s a controlled review of drift signals and exception volume.

1615
01:11:25,060 –> 01:11:27,420
You walk in with metrics, you leave with decisions.

1616
01:11:27,420 –> 01:11:28,980
The agenda is fixed.

1617
01:11:28,980 –> 01:11:30,780
You don’t cover what comes up.

1618
01:11:30,780 –> 01:11:33,460
You cover what always comes up.

1619
01:11:33,460 –> 01:11:34,660
Privileged access changes.

1620
01:11:34,660 –> 01:11:36,060
Who has standing privilege?

1621
01:11:36,060 –> 01:11:41,340
Who elevated? Who didn’t deprovision? And where role assignments are expanding?

1622
01:11:41,340 –> 01:11:42,380
Exception register growth.

1623
01:11:42,380 –> 01:11:46,500
New exceptions, expired exceptions and exceptions that are now being treated like normal

1624
01:11:46,500 –> 01:11:47,980
operations.

1625
01:11:47,980 –> 01:11:49,220
Workspace sprawl.

1626
01:11:49,220 –> 01:11:50,820
New teams and sites created.

1627
01:11:50,820 –> 01:11:55,460
Often rates and high risk work spaces without owners or classification.

1628
01:11:55,460 –> 01:12:00,540
External access posture, guest invites, new domains, anonymous links created and sharing

1629
01:12:00,540 –> 01:12:03,180
events that don’t align with your stated intent.

1630
01:12:03,180 –> 01:12:07,780
CLP outcomes, not how many alerts, but which alerts represent real business impact and

1631
01:12:07,780 –> 01:12:10,620
whether users are rooting around controls.

1632
01:12:10,620 –> 01:12:15,180
Automation integrity, flows created in the wrong place, connectors used across sensitivity

1633
01:12:15,180 –> 01:12:18,980
tiers and critical automations without continuity ownership.

1634
01:12:18,980 –> 01:12:21,580
The purpose of monthly health isn’t to fix everything.

1635
01:12:21,580 –> 01:12:25,980
It’s to prevent silent accumulation, small corrections before drift becomes a redesign.

1636
01:12:25,980 –> 01:12:28,340
And the meeting needs two artifacts that make it real.

1637
01:12:28,340 –> 01:12:31,980
First, a decision log, not minutes, decisions.

1638
01:12:31,980 –> 01:12:36,380
We approved this, we denied that, we changed this default, we expired that exception.

1639
01:12:36,380 –> 01:12:37,940
If it’s not in the log, it didn’t happen.

1640
01:12:37,940 –> 01:12:39,700
Second, an exception register.

1641
01:12:39,700 –> 01:12:41,300
Exceptions aren’t shameful, they’re inevitable.

1642
01:12:41,300 –> 01:12:44,540
What’s unacceptable is untracted exceptions with no expiry.

1643
01:12:44,540 –> 01:12:49,580
Every exception is a risk event, sponsor, rationale, compensating control, expiration and

1644
01:12:49,580 –> 01:12:52,020
a measurable signal that tells you if it’s spreading.

1645
01:12:52,020 –> 01:12:55,460
Now the quarterly blast radius review, this is where you stop pretending the platform is

1646
01:12:55,460 –> 01:12:56,460
stable.

1647
01:12:56,460 –> 01:12:59,140
Quarterly you assume something changed that you didn’t fully understand.

1648
01:12:59,140 –> 01:13:04,060
As it did, someone added a conditional access exclusion, someone relaxed a sharing setting,

1649
01:13:04,060 –> 01:13:07,580
someone enabled the connector, someone changed a retention scope, someone created a new

1650
01:13:07,580 –> 01:13:11,860
automation pattern, someone merged tenants, someone onboarded co-pilot features, something

1651
01:13:11,860 –> 01:13:13,380
moved.

1652
01:13:13,380 –> 01:13:17,300
Quarterly blast radius review asks a different question than monthly health.

1653
01:13:17,300 –> 01:13:19,100
Monthly asks, what is drifting?

1654
01:13:19,100 –> 01:13:22,620
Quarterly asks, what changed and what did that change affect?

1655
01:13:22,620 –> 01:13:26,940
The format is again fixed, review the major control plane’s identity, collaboration, automation

1656
01:13:26,940 –> 01:13:32,740
compliance and for each one identify the change, what was modified by whom and why, the impact

1657
01:13:32,740 –> 01:13:36,140
which business functions felt at first and what signals confirmed it.

1658
01:13:36,140 –> 01:13:41,100
The side effects were users created workarounds, where policies lost credibility and what new

1659
01:13:41,100 –> 01:13:42,820
risk edges were introduced.

1660
01:13:42,820 –> 01:13:47,140
The remediation, what default needs to change so the same failure mode doesn’t repeat.

1661
01:13:47,140 –> 01:13:51,140
This is not optional, this is how you keep governance deterministic and yes the executive

1662
01:13:51,140 –> 01:13:54,940
instinct is to avoid this because it sounds like overhead, it is overhead.

1663
01:13:54,940 –> 01:13:57,580
It’s cheaper than incidents, audits and rebuilding trust.

1664
01:13:57,580 –> 01:14:02,060
The last rule, no ad hoc committees, ad hoc committees are how governance dies, they expand

1665
01:14:02,060 –> 01:14:06,940
scope, they dilute authority and they defer decisions until the business roots around

1666
01:14:06,940 –> 01:14:07,940
you.

1667
01:14:07,940 –> 01:14:11,660
Cadence replaces that with short cycles and clear decision rights, monthly health reduces

1668
01:14:11,660 –> 01:14:13,540
exception accumulation.

1669
01:14:13,540 –> 01:14:17,820
Quarterly blast radius reduces surprise, together they reduce the only three things leadership

1670
01:14:17,820 –> 01:14:19,740
actually cares about.

1671
01:14:19,740 –> 01:14:22,540
Exceptions, delays and uncontrolled impact.

1672
01:14:27,940 –> 01:14:32,660
Once you have roles that own outcomes and a cadence that forces drift into the open,

1673
01:14:32,660 –> 01:14:36,260
leadership finally gets to do what leadership should have been doing all along.

1674
01:14:36,260 –> 01:14:37,500
Demand results.

1675
01:14:37,500 –> 01:14:42,340
Not adoption, not number of policies, not how many labels were created, those are vanity

1676
01:14:42,340 –> 01:14:46,340
metrics, they measure activity, not control, the outcomes that matter are operational

1677
01:14:46,340 –> 01:14:49,980
measurable and hard to fake, first, provisioning speed.

1678
01:14:49,980 –> 01:14:53,700
If governance is real, time to access goes down, not up.

1679
01:14:53,700 –> 01:14:57,540
Because governed pathways become the default and the default stops being a ticket, users

1680
01:14:57,540 –> 01:15:02,380
should get the workspace they need quickly with the right boundaries already applied, naming,

1681
01:15:02,380 –> 01:15:06,900
classification, external posture, life cycle settings and ownership continuity.

1682
01:15:06,900 –> 01:15:10,420
When that happens, you don’t see emergency admin grants to unblock the businesses.

1683
01:15:10,420 –> 01:15:15,340
You don’t see global admin handed out as a productivity tool, you see a stable pipeline,

1684
01:15:15,340 –> 01:15:17,380
request, provision, operate.

1685
01:15:17,380 –> 01:15:19,540
So the outcome you demand is simple.

1686
01:15:19,540 –> 01:15:22,700
Come to access decreases while standing privilege decreases.

1687
01:15:22,700 –> 01:15:26,420
If you can’t have both, you don’t have governance, you have either bureaucracy or chaos,

1688
01:15:26,420 –> 01:15:28,980
both are expensive.

1689
01:15:28,980 –> 01:15:33,540
Second, risk reduction that shows up in the business, not just in a security portal.

1690
01:15:33,540 –> 01:15:36,140
A mature tenant doesn’t have zero incidents.

1691
01:15:36,140 –> 01:15:40,060
It has fewer incidents with business impact and faster containment when they happen.

1692
01:15:40,060 –> 01:15:45,540
So you demand fewer DLP incidents that represent real exfiltration risk, not just noise.

1693
01:15:45,540 –> 01:15:49,260
You demand fewer high privilege role assignments that persist longer than they should.

1694
01:15:49,260 –> 01:15:51,860
You demand fewer anonymous links that live forever.

1695
01:15:51,860 –> 01:15:54,580
You demand fewer guest accounts with no sponsor.

1696
01:15:54,580 –> 01:15:58,940
And when the risk does appear, you demand a traceable ownership chain who responded,

1697
01:15:58,940 –> 01:16:03,060
what decision was made and what default changed so the same pattern doesn’t recur.

1698
01:16:03,060 –> 01:16:04,820
Third, operational clarity.

1699
01:16:04,820 –> 01:16:08,380
This is where governance stops being a moral argument and becomes a productivity argument.

1700
01:16:08,380 –> 01:16:12,540
A governed tenant reduces shadow IT because users can get worked on inside the platform

1701
01:16:12,540 –> 01:16:13,700
without fighting it.

1702
01:16:13,700 –> 01:16:17,260
They stop creating duplicate workspaces because search becomes trustworthy.

1703
01:16:17,260 –> 01:16:20,740
They stop using personal accounts because external collaboration has a safe path.

1704
01:16:20,740 –> 01:16:24,220
They stop building critical flows in the default environment because there is an environment

1705
01:16:24,220 –> 01:16:26,100
strategy that matches reality.

1706
01:16:26,100 –> 01:16:30,540
So you demand a measurable reduction in, often teams, often sites, stale identities, and

1707
01:16:30,540 –> 01:16:31,820
unmanaged automations.

1708
01:16:31,820 –> 01:16:35,620
Not because you love meatness, because these artifacts are where data and risk accumulate

1709
01:16:35,620 –> 01:16:36,620
silently.

1710
01:16:36,620 –> 01:16:38,460
They are the backlog of future incidents.

1711
01:16:38,460 –> 01:16:39,980
Fourth, decision quality.

1712
01:16:39,980 –> 01:16:44,020
This is the most underrated outcome and it’s the one executives should care about most.

1713
01:16:44,020 –> 01:16:48,260
The tool first organizations turn every governance question into a debate because nobody

1714
01:16:48,260 –> 01:16:50,140
owns end to end consequences.

1715
01:16:50,140 –> 01:16:54,140
That produces delays, escalations, and endless exception requests.

1716
01:16:54,140 –> 01:16:59,180
System first organizations decide faster because the decision authority is explicit, the

1717
01:16:59,180 –> 01:17:02,220
impact pathways are known and the exception process is real.

1718
01:17:02,220 –> 01:17:03,700
So you demand fewer escalations.

1719
01:17:03,700 –> 01:17:06,140
You demand fewer, we need a committee moment.

1720
01:17:06,140 –> 01:17:09,540
You demand that the litmus test can be answered before changes are made.

1721
01:17:09,540 –> 01:17:13,340
And you measure decision quality by the thing that always exposes the truth, exception

1722
01:17:13,340 –> 01:17:14,340
volume.

1723
01:17:14,340 –> 01:17:18,220
If exceptions are increasing, your defaults are wrong or your enforcement is unusable.

1724
01:17:18,220 –> 01:17:19,860
Either way, the system is drifting.

1725
01:17:19,860 –> 01:17:24,100
If exceptions are decreasing, your organization is learning, your defaults are improving,

1726
01:17:24,100 –> 01:17:26,700
and the platform is becoming deterministic again.

1727
01:17:26,700 –> 01:17:29,060
That is the simple reframing leaders need.

1728
01:17:29,060 –> 01:17:30,820
Governance is not a break on productivity.

1729
01:17:30,820 –> 01:17:34,460
It is the design of productive pathways that hold under pressure.

1730
01:17:34,460 –> 01:17:37,940
And the phrase that captures all of it is the only one worth putting on a slide.

1731
01:17:37,940 –> 01:17:39,540
Fewer exceptions?

1732
01:17:39,540 –> 01:17:40,540
Faster decisions.

1733
01:17:40,540 –> 01:17:42,180
Smaller blast radius.

1734
01:17:42,180 –> 01:17:45,300
If you can’t demand those outcomes, you are not funding governance, you are funding

1735
01:17:45,300 –> 01:17:46,300
theatre?

1736
01:17:46,300 –> 01:17:47,300
Conclusion?

1737
01:17:47,300 –> 01:17:48,300
The mandate.

1738
01:17:48,300 –> 01:17:52,820
Microsoft 365 governance fails when you assign tool owners to a system that behaves like

1739
01:17:52,820 –> 01:17:53,980
a single platform.

1740
01:17:53,980 –> 01:17:58,540
If you want fewer incidents and fewer surprises, stop funding portal expertise and start funding

1741
01:17:58,540 –> 01:17:59,540
outcome ownership.

1742
01:17:59,540 –> 01:18:03,860
Subscribe and listen the next episode on governance metrics that can’t be gameed because

1743
01:18:03,860 –> 01:18:05,620
dashboards don’t enforce intent.