Question : Best practice for Sharepoint structure in a company

I would like to start using Sharepoint wihtin my company, I am looking for guidance on best practice deployment in regards to structure.  User base of 50-100.

Should I be creating Team sites for each department in the company, what are the best methodsin deploying sharepoint.

 I understand this is very broad topic but im just looking to get the first steps right, examples of methods that have worked well for other people.

Thanks,
Andy.

Answer : Best practice for Sharepoint structure in a company

Hi, Since you are in a small to medium organisation, I would suggest that you create Departments sites(as sub-sites) and create "Site Libraries" within,  depending on the activities a team need to perform, instead of creating so many "Team Sites". Creating "Site Libraries" will allow you to select different kinds of Library (i.e Document Library, Photo Library, Anouncements, Wikis, Blogs etc..) and its much quicker to setup and maintained.

To my experience, the best concept in deploying sharepoint is to use VMware and this has also been suggested by Microsoft themselves. I suggest you get confortable with using it before installing sharepoint. By Using VMware, you will be able to practice on building anything you need on sharepoint and see if the solution is acceptable and useful in your Team/organisation. If not, you can revert your system to its previous state with a click of a button. Its like when you saved a game at any point, you can go back to that point at anytime and as much as you like without affecting anything.

Hope that helps.