Who should work on which project?
You have five people, five projects, and a gut feeling that your best analyst should get the flashiest assignment. That gut feeling is usually the expensive one. Score every person on every project and the optimizer finds the pairing that makes the whole team best off, not just the loudest resume.
Work Intermediate Optimization free
After you install, this is the model to open.
Best-Fit Assignments
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
The answer
One click checks all 120 possible pairings and returns the only one that tops out the team.
- Best total team fit
- 43 out of 50
- Average match quality
- 8.6 out of 10
- Weakest match in the best plan
- 8 out of 10
- Star-picks-first plan
- 38 5 points worse
The best pairing scores 43 out of 50, and no one lands below an 8. The intuitive move, handing Ava her perfect-10 analytics project, drops the team to 38 because Marcus gets stranded on a 3. The optimizer sends Ava to her 9 so Marcus keeps his 9, a one-point personal sacrifice that buys the team five points. That trade is nearly impossible to spot by eye, and it is exactly what the optimizer finds instantly.
The model
The model is a grid of fit scores and a simple rule: everyone gets exactly one project, every project gets exactly one owner.
| People to place | Ava, Marcus, Priya, Diego, Kenji |
| Projects to cover | Analytics revamp, Mobile launch, Pricing study, Client onboarding, Ops audit |
| Fit scores | 0 to 10 for every person-project pair (25 in all) |
| Matching rule | one project per person, one person per project |
| Objective | maximize the total team fit score |
| Tempting shortcut | let the star pick first, then fill in the rest |
| Scale | rename rows and columns for territories, mentors, or interview slots |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- What should you bid to win the job and still make money?Competitive Bid Optimizer
- What will this project actually cost at completion?Project Health Check (EVM)
- Fund the safe project or the risky one?
- Which offer package should you actually ask for?Job Offer Package Optimizer
- Big advance or double the royalty rate?Advance vs Royalty
- Ship at 80% confidence, or run one more validation round?Ship Now or Test More
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Optimization in Google Sheets.