There's an interesting question here:
"...demonstrate that your opponent is /trying to counter your argument/ by attacking..."
However, counterargument is not the only way to counter an argument. You can counter an argument by changing the subject, so you don't have to deal with it. So the question is, if one changes the subject from a substantive matter to personal attacks, are those attacks ad hominem? Because if one changes the subject to an unrelated substantive matter, that's a non sequitur.
Here's a sick idea.
Call for volunteers. Ask people to volunteer for positions in that list, first-come, first-serve. The first to volunteer are the last to be fired if money becomes short.
When money becomes short, flip a coin, and if it comes up heads - reverse the list. Now the first to volunteer will be the first to be fired.
This reconciles the fundamental issue that those who rush to volunteer if they will be the LAST fired are probably those with the least confidence in the project. The coin toss roughly equalises the chance that anyone on the team will be fired, based on their position in the list, leaving them all roughly equivalent in terms of their motivation to keep the project running.
I don't know what good that is in the grand scheme of things, I just thought it made things interesting.