It seems an interesting idea to accept them from a queue like 5 government workers pressing the button for the next ticket number held by "customers". It would certainly mean the system is sensitive to processes completing earlier than predicted. But in this context, the first available worker at any time cannot always optimally take the largest process in the queue. For example, in the simplest case of two workers with three items left in the queue, when one becomes available 3 minutes ahead of the other and the remaining process times are estmated at 8, 5 and 4 minutes; taking the 8 minute one would leave the other worker with 12 minutes (update 3 to be free plus the 5 and 4 remaining) to your 8 whereas taking the 5 minute one would leave him 11 (3+8) minutes to your 9 (5+4). So yes, I see benefit in dynamic selection although it doesn't actually remove the problem of optimal picking (based on averaged runtimes and best fit) from what is remaining to be processed, but it does add another independent optimisation to the best solution.