Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed. It is the only thing that ever has. (Attributed to Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist)
In our last blog we talked about defining your purpose as a team; the focus of this blog is on understanding what resources you have available, or might need to source, to fulfil your purpose. This is an easy step to overlook or move through too quickly: we think that we already know what resources we have available as we can see them on screen, in person or on spreadsheets and we just want to get on and do the job. However, spending some time on this element of the canvas can be very worthwhile: we can find resources we were not aware of that can open up new opportunities and we can identify the resource gaps that might cause major delivery problems later.
The canvas offered four prompts to help you think about resources.
- What resources are available to your team to do its work?
- What budgets are available?
- What support does your team need?
- What are your team development needs?
We have unpacked these and offered some further ideas below.
What resources are available to your team to do its work?
Do think widely about the resources that are or could be available to you. In particular, think about the skills people bring and the time they have to invest in this project as well as the cash budgets.
Hint: the amount of time people have to invest is usually the most overlooked and the most important element.
You could do a quick inventory using the following questions as a framework.
| Resource type | Aspects to consider |
| Cash investment | What sums are available to you to invest in your team’s work? How far are these sums dependent on achieving other financial targets? |
| People | What skills and experiences can our team draw on within the team and beyond?
How much time can each team member give to this team’s work? |
| Reputation | What networks are we plugged into and can learn from?
How credible are we? |
| Systems and data | What business systems and processes can we use to support our work?
What data is available to support our decision making and monitoring and evaluation? |
What budgets are available?
- Does your team have a budget or does one need to be set?
- Does everyone understand the budget and the assumptions underpinning it? Does your team understand the key risks in the budget? If not, they need to!
- Does your team own this budget or does ownership lie elsewhere?
- Is responsibility for delivering the budget held collectively by the team or by an individual/individuals?
- If parts of the budget are delegated to others, are the rules of delegation clear?
What support does your team need?
Support could come in three broad types. Try and identify as clearly as you can the support you want or need and from whom you need it.
| Possible support area | Examples |
| Internal support | Help from colleagues in working through scheduling challenges
Visible support and encouragement from the organisation’s senior staff that signals to everyone the importance of your team’s work Advocacy by members of your board in relation to network building and fundraising |
| Administrative support | Arranging meetings and taking minutes
Provision of information and reports Maintenance of key business systems such as Teams, Monday, or Slack |
| External support | Advocacy
Funding Connecting your team to others Provision of advice such as artform, financial, legal or HR |
What are your team development needs?
Take a look at your answers so far. Where are the gaps in skills or knowledge between what you need and what you have? What help might you need to enable you to work together in the ways that you want to.
Agree a plan to meet the (priority) needs you identify. Think creatively about how to fill the gaps – the answer isn’t always to go on a training course.
Next time we will be looking at team membership and roles.
Susan and Dawn