Ask only what changes the match
Every question on a formation survey should change who ends up with whom. If an answer would not move a single student between teams, cut it. Long surveys lower response rates and rarely improve the teams.
The inputs that earn their place
A few things consistently matter: the skills and experience someone brings, when they are actually free to meet, the kind of work or problem they want to take on, and a small number of people they would like to work with. Most good formation comes from these.
Be careful with free text
Open questions feel thorough but are hard to act on at scale. If you use them, keep them focused, one on strengths, one on working style, and have a plan for turning the answers into something you can actually compare across a cohort.
Make it quick and honest
Students answer carefully when a survey is short and they trust it matters. Tell them how the answers are used, keep it to a few minutes, and avoid questions that invite a performative answer rather than a true one.
Turning answers like these into balanced teams is the hard part, and the part Teamer handles: it takes structured inputs and proposes draft teams you review.
Want the exact question set, including how I phrase the mutual-preference question, as a starting point? Get in touch and I will share it.
Keep reading
Why ad-hoc grouping quietly fails some students, and the principles behind teams that actually work.
Group work and the students who get left behindGroup projects reward the well-connected by default. Here is how to change that without policing every team.
How many students should be in a group project team?There is no magic number, but there is a range that works and a few reasons teams drift outside it.
Should students pick their own teams, or should you assign them?Self-selection feels fair and saves you work. Here is what it quietly costs, and when assigning teams is the better call.
How to assign students to groups in a large classSorting a class list by hand does not scale. Here is a process that does, without turning into a spreadsheet nightmare.
How to run a team health check on student projectsMost struggling teams are quiet until it is too late. A lightweight check-in surfaces them while you can still help.
How to stop free-riders in group projectsFree-riding is usually a design problem, not a discipline problem. Here is how to reduce it before it starts.