How to Assign Tasks to Project Team Members?

How to Assign Tasks to Project Team Members?

How do you assign the many tasks in your project in the best way to the project members? I developed a personal technique in my 20 years career as a project manager which I'd like to share:

• You have n team members in your project, M1... Mn. If you have 6 team members in your team then n=6.
• You have x tasks in your project, T1...Tx. Let us suppose x=120.

What is the optimal assignment of these tasks to the team members?
We can use following practical model to find the best combination:

• Each task Ti has a set of skills needed to complete it, S1… Si.
• Each person in the team has a set of skills that we know and that are proved, S1...Sk.

If Task 1 requires skills S3, S7, and S12, we look for a team member with those skills or skills close to it, and assign the task to that person. For example if a task requires "Negotiation" as a skill, we look for team members with "Negotiation" as one of their skills. If we don't find anybody with that skill, we may look for team members with the skills: "Communication", "Empathy", etc.

In that way, we go through the 120 tasks and assign them to each resource, looking for affinity between skills.
After that, we schedule the tasks, put start dates and end dates, and then build the project schedule.

⇨ What do you think of this method of assigning project tasks to members?

		Comments Sort by date Sort by rating Rating
		0 Aniket Deolikar Consultant, India
	Transition Management Can you please share some details about transition management? Is it similar to project management? ... Sign up

		0 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Transition Management As I understand the term, "Transition management" is more or less a synonym of "Change Management". ... Sign up

		-1 Aniket Deolikar Consultant, India
	Transition Management in Outsourcing @Jaap de Jonge: I spent some time in this role now and I have gotten a hands on experience on this. ... Sign up