Everyone has his or her own preferred blend of types of tasks. This assessment, developed and validated at Intel Corporation, is quite useful in a team environment for optimizing how people work on that team.

Some assessments are useful for putting the right people in the right positions on a team. Other assessments are useful for determining development needs of the team members.

This assessment adds a third opportunity to optimize performance. It adds a new dimension to performance improvement and is often the fastest way to improve team performance. The Task Quotient assessment recognizes that we already have a team of people, so selection is not always useful. It also recognizes that developing certain talents might not be easy or quick to accomplish. TQ helps us see how to adjust the job to better fit the talents of the people. It shows us how to optimize the work individuals are performing based on three different types of tasks:

Intel studies have found conclusively that people are more satisfied, therefore perform better, if their preferred blend of these three types of tasks, their Task Quotient, closely matches the actual job they have. Measurable team performance improvement is recognized when teams collaborate to share work tasks in ways that better match those tasks with the individuals’ preferred blend.

For example, if my preferred blend of work, my Task Quotient, is 70% routine, 15% project and 15% problem solving, I am not going to be very satisfied if 50% of the time I am solving problems. That is going to be very stressful for me, and my performance is going to reflect that stress. If someone else on the team enjoys solving problems more (per their Task Quotient), but they are not doing much of it, there might be an opportunity to tradeoff some responsibilities to better match our preferred task blends.

This very scenario has been successfully and enthusiastically applied at Intel and other companies with great success.

The Task Quotient assessment is very simple and inexpensive.