How does your firm allocate people to teams?

There are many different way to allocate people to project teams.

TeamFit has found that there are several common ways that companies allocate people to project teams. The approach taken depends on company culture and team composition. The person responsible for allocating people to teams is called a variety of different things: resource manager, allocation manager, team provisioner and so on. In some cases this role is filled by the project manager or a senior person such as a VP Professional Services or a Practice Manager. In smaller companies the COO is sometimes responsible for allocations.

Understanding the different approaches to allocations will help all of us understand best practices and the options for this crucial activity (getting the right people on projects is the key to project success and an efficient allocation process is necessary for high utilization rates.

TeamFit will share the results of this survey with anyone who completes it and chooses to provide contact information.

You can try the TeamFit team building platform here.

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* 1. What type of company do you work in?

Business Consulting Firm

Systems Integration Firm

Professional Services Business at a Larger Firm

Engineering Firm

Accounting Firm

Other (please specify)

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* 2. How many billable staff does your company have?

Less than five

Five to twenty

Twenty one to fifty

Fifty one to one hunred

One hundred and one to five hundred

Five hundred and one to one thousand

One thousand and one to five thousand

Five thousand and one to ten thousand

Ten thousand and one to fifty thousand

More than fifty thousand

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* 3. What is your team composition? (Internal or employees vs. external or contractors)

Only internal staff

Mostly internal staff

Mix of internal and external

Mostly external

Only external

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* 4. How distributed are your teams?

We source people locally and everyone works together

We source people from all over but bring them together to work locally

We source people from all over and work in distributed teams

Other (please specify)

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* 5. Who is primarily responsible for allocation of people to project teams?

Administrative staff

Project manager

Senior manager such as VP Operation

Managing partner for the business unit

Executive manager (COO or CEO)

Group decision

External advisor (recruiting or talent management consultant)

Other (please specify)

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* 6. What are the most difficult challenges in assigning people to teams? (With 1 being the most important and 7 the least.)

Understanding who is available

Finding the combination of people with the right skills

Finding the combination of people who can work together effectively

Finding the combination of people acceptable to the client

Managing the total cost of the team

Optimizing utilization ratios

Optimizing allocations across multiple teams

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* 7. Please share your best practices for assigning people to teams.

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* 8. Summarize your organization's culture in three words.

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* 9. If you would like a summary of the results please provide your e-mail address.

Thank you for taking this survey. The results will help us design a platform that makes team building better for the companies that need to build teams and the people who work on them. Try TeamFit.