tl;dr - don't only think about resource in the sense of departmental structure, but also think of it as a collection of complimentary skills collated and organised to deliver long-term strategic outcomes. Then think about the culture of the group and how likely they are to come up with new, novel, innovative solutions to those problems. Give them the, framework, data and cadence to recommend course corrections. In my post about Discovery I spoke briefly about two of the foundational pillars of a great SEO strategy which covers what resource you have and how it applies itself. And I wanted to to explore them a bit more by bringing them together as one concept that should feature in your strategy deck.
This section should be one that looks simultaneously at the team, its make-up, capability and how its applied to solve SEO challenges. I'm not going to be overly prescriptive here as the approach I use in my strategies is somewhat novel and I didn't want to give away some of my (and my employer's "secret source.") But I do suggest that you at least consider thinking about, and presenting your assessment somewhat similar to the way I'm going to verbally describe.
I was listening to Matthew Syed's book: Rebel Ideas and the Power of Diverse Thinking and there was a chapter on team make-up. Obviously as I was listening to it on Audible I didn't have any diagrams to convey what Matthew was thinking but I had to rely on my own imagination. I had thoughts floating around in my head about how I'd like to represent how I should communicate the current skills of the team, and how they combine, but we have gaps and that we should do about it.
The vision I had was a clear circle with a bold border that represented the perfect skill set of the team against 5 areas relating to most of the pillars of SEO: Strategy, Content, Links, Innovation & Insight, Tech SEO and strategy creation. At the time I was minded of those spider diagrams used in FIFA on the PS5 where the skillsets of players were depicted.
The outer border of the main circle represented the cominbed coverage of skills we need to safely and effectively deliver the strategy over the next 3 years given all the programme-level initiatives that are known or expected.
For each subteam with the SEO department I had smaller circles summarising the extent of the subteam's capability. The opaqueness of the circle represented the depth of skills as some teams may have individuals that have very specific skills and are masters of them. While other teams may have more generalists.
The gap around the edges: between what you have and what you need are the ones that you are suggesting that you need to cover with additional resource or training.
It's somewhat like this that Matthew shared on Twitter:
When you suggest additional resource, use a different colour to highlight it and that it covers the gaps. If you're tackling the old-age problem of where content or digital PR sits, definitely show the capability circles extending out of the SEO requirement circle.
That's what I wanted to show about how Discovery helps you identify your SWOT and then your chisel it into rocks. And even if resource isn't a rock in itself, you will still have to face into the conundrum of how you resource your strategy.
If you use external, agency resource, ensure that you represent this on the chart and identify the cost and benefits.
But back onto the generalists point I made earlier. There's a fantastic book by David Epstein called "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World" and there's one chapter that stood out for me. It was when he was talking about The Einstellung Effect which is "the tendency of problem solvers to employ familiar methods if better ones are available".
When you think of building teams be aware of this tendency in yourself. You should recruit not only for depth and breadth of skills to cover all that is need to deliver your strategy. But also think of the aptitude the team has to ask the right questions, come up with problems in the novel ways and being fearless with wanting to improve at every opportunity. It ties into what I was talking about: the willingness to course correct. Have the sessions (ceremonies) to act as the forum for this to happen and employ the people that take the opportunities given to them.
A future step would be to take this conceptual view and distil it into a skills matrix - which I will discuss at a later date.