In many real-world systems incoming tasks split into subtasks which are processed by a set of parallel servers. In such systems two metrics are of potential interest: response time and subtask dispersion. Previous research has been focused on the minimisation of one, but not both, of these metrics. In particular, in our previous work, we showed how the processing of selected subtasks can be delayed in order to minimise expected subtask dispersion and percentiles of subtask dispersion in the context of split-merge systems. However, the introduction of subtask delays obviously impacts adversely on task response time and maximum sustainable system throughput. In the present work, we describe a methodology for managing the trade off between subtask dispersion and task response time. The objective function of the minimisation is based on the product of expected subtask dispersion and expected task response time. Compared with our previous methodology, we show how our new technique can achieve comparable subtask dispersion with substantial improvements in expected task response time.