1. The deal arrives -at the firm and is assigned to a partner or GP. in top-tier firms,virtually all deals are referred in and assigned based on a partner's experience in the sector or contact with the CEO or deal source. in general,the process tried to align the deal with partner's areas of expertise.-- in one case even using a computer-based scoring system. generally this person could choose to turn down the deal immediately or investigate it .sometimes a second partner or a deal team was immediately recruited. in other case ,the partner did some preliminary investigation alone before deciding to recruit a second. which might be a partner or a principal exhibit2***the number of people required to propose an investment for a decision*** the general sense was , if the sponsor can't convince one other person in the firm to support this deal, how will the rest of us ever get on board. in all cases, a partner or GP had to declare an interest in the deal before it made the next step