Forming competitively balanced teams

Abstract

We examine the problem of assigning individuals to teams so as to make the teams as similar as possible to each other across multiple attributes. This may be complicated by a variety of constraints, including restrictions on whether specific individuals can or should be assigned to the same team. The problem arises in multiple contexts, including youth recreation leagues and academic programs or courses with mandated project groups. We propose a model for the problem and investigate various solution approaches, including mixed integer programming and several heuristics.

The Influence of Goal Commitment and Partner Status on Team Assignment Outcomes

“…The methods used to assign individuals to task performance were found to influence participants’ subsequent procedural and distributive justice perceptions. This finding supports previous research showing that assignment methods can be perceived as having different levels of fairness (Bacon et al., 2001; Knight, 2016; Rubin & Bai, 2015).…”

“…This study found that random and self-decision assignment methods resulted in higher performance levels than did an ability-based assignment method. This result is in keeping with other team assignment research (Bacon, Stewart, & Silver, 1999; Chapman et al., 2006; Decker, 1995; Miles & Klein, 1998; Rubin & Bai, 2015; Spotts & Chelte, 2005). The result provides further support that using different assignment methods can result in varying levels of subsequent task performance on a short, undesirable task.…”

“…The issue of fairness is particularly important when creating teams (Bacon et al., 2001; Knight, 2016; Rubin & Bai, 2015). Some assignment methods may result in team members having to perform differing levels of work which may raise concerns about inequity and about fairness of those assignment methods (Bacon et al., 2001; Leventhal, 1976).…”

“…Many justice theorists identify process control or process involvement, such as would occur in the self-decision team assignment condition, as a principal contributing factor to perceptions of fairness (Folger, 1977; Leventhal, 1976, 1980; Thibaut & Walker, 1978). Additionally, a random assignment method may result in some teams having more able members than other teams, which may raise questions about fairness (Rubin & Bai, 2015).…”

Three parallel task assignment problems with shared resources

“…Cesani and Steudel [16], Bidanda et al [8], Dimitriadis [19], Becker and Scholl [6,7], Süer et al. [48,49], Süer et al [52], Battaïa and Dolgui [5], Rubin and Bai [42], Otto and Battaïa [38].…”