Requesting break down data for an amount or number

Question

I am developing a page that allows managers to select teams and individuals needed for a project. When selecting a team, each employee within that team is shown with their known skills. Once an individual is identified as being needed for the project, the manager should be given a way to break down the hours expected for each skill that employee possesses.

I have created a mockup of what I have developed to this point.

Right now, I just have a table at the bottom with inputs for each skill. A project can have more than one employee assigned to it so there could be more columns than what is shown.

I have two questions.

1. Is there a better area to put this type of info? I had thought about making a panel to the right of the employee selection to display this.
2. What is a better way to ask for data that is related to a previous selection like in this case?

I would be grateful for any suggestions or any references to similar pages/designs.

Answer 1

It seems from the manager's point of view, the flow would be:

1. What skill is needed?
2. Who can do that skill?
3. How much time should they spend on it?

Perhaps the manager starts by entering the skill needed, and the system returns people who can do that skill. The manager chooses the person, assigns hours, and moves on to the next skill.

When finished (or at any time), the manager could see an editable table view of Skill | Assignee | Hours Allocated

Answer 2

You could allow your managers to build a grid view by starting with a common skillset, and add team members as they go.

Perhaps I misunderstand your use case, but here's a thought about combining the two together, especially if you have lots of employees with lots of skills.

You could allow for adding and removing skillsets or members as needed (adding and deleting rows and columns), and keep a tally of total hours for each set, so you can see the total cost in hours / personnel (I'm not sure how important that is in your case)

This way if you have a large team, you can stack them vertically, and use skills as a column. Allow standard search and filter, as large projects inevitably will scroll columns and rows off of the viewport.

Having inputs or 'n/a' gives you a sense of what those employees are capable of; in this instance, Sara Velazquez can cover both skills.

The employee names could also link or bring a popup, in case you have edit rights to add skills they have, but are not displayed in their profile.