Definition
In the first place, the RACI Matrix is a tool used to identify the responsibilities of roles or team members and the activities or deliverables in which they will participate. However, when completing a RACI matrix, it is important to ensure that all stakeholders or stakeholder groups have been identified.
Secondly, people are usually clear about the meaning of Consulted and Informed. However, there’s often confusion about the difference between Responsible and Accountable. In fact, even seasoned program managers sometimes confuse the two. Here’s the difference: the responsible person completes the task (does the work) while the accountable person manages it. For example, a developer is responsible for delivering the system code. Therefore, the developer is responsible for delivering the system code and the developer’s manager (or team leader) is responsible for delivering the system code.
RACI is an acronym for the following words:
R: Responsible: The person performing the work on the task. He/she is responsible for getting the work done or making decisions. Who is responsible for the work?
A: Accountable: The person accountable for the successful completion of the task. It is also the decision maker. Only one stakeholder receives this role. Who is accountable for the outcome and the process?
C: Consulted: The person in charge of contributing to the activity or to provide advice for it. Who is the expert in this field? Who will be of good advice in order to bring the task forward?
I: Informed: The person who must be informed about the progress of the activity and notified of its’ outcome. Who is impacted? Who must be aware of the progress.
Comparatively, there are some slight variations between the English and the French usage of the matrix
RASCI
As a matter of fact, the acronym RASCI is sometimes used as an alternative where S stands for Support; the person who can contribute its expertise upon completing.
Why use a RACI matrix?
In fact, this matrix is also particularly helpful for complex initiatives that require knowing who must be able to decide what to do during each step.
Initiatives run smoothly
- Roles and responsibilities are clearly defined.
- Avoids some people not being responsible for anything.
- Prevents several people from doing the same task.
Grants an overview of the initiatives
Presents every participant and their tasks.
Shows activities lacking people and ensure everyone has someone in charge.
No task is neglected.
Allows to monitor deliverables and implement reminder systems.
Enhances team cohesion
- Avoid confusion about ownership and processes.
- It’s easy to train new hires. Since their roles and responsibilities are clearly laid out, they get up to speed more quickly.
- Reduce frictions between employees and management thanks to everyone knowing the scope of assigned tasks -and whom to ask questions.
- Efficiency of meetings and agendas and avoid being redundant. A good way to give stakeholders feedbacks.
How to use the RACI matrix?
1. Building the RACI matrix
The first step is to draw a two-dimensional table.
- Rows of the table (tasks, actions, deliverables, various stages or steps, etc…) represents all activities linked to the initiative
Columns of the table represents the speakers of the initiative. Speakers are not necessarily specific individuals. Entries of columns can be a service, a function, a profession, etc…
2. Filling the matrix
In order to fill the matrix, you have to assign (a) role(s) to each participant based on activities by filling the cells, using one or several letters to do so.
There is at least one R (Responsible) in each row.
There is always one and only one A (Accountable) in each row.
C(s) (Consulted) usually are experts who have competency in the task at hand. On request from As or R, they share their expertise. Thus, they are available for giving advice but they do not have any authority and R can freely decide whether to take Cs’ advice into account or not.
The I(s) (Informed) do not necessarily have a direct role in the initiative but can be impacted by it. Hence, they must get copies of important decisions and progress.
Every team member has a role on each task. (It’s not uncommon for some people to be Informed on most tasks.)
If your matrix has a large number of consulted and informed roles, make sure you have a simple, lightweight way of keeping them informed. This is to ensure that everyone has access to your initiative plan so that they can track progress. Sharing a link to your initiative in TeamGantt is an excellent option for keeping people outside your organization informed.
Do not overload a team member with too many Responsible tasks.
How to carry out what you learned with the RACI matrix?
Since the RACI matrix allows you to have a a global view and to quickly identify non-functional points or points to be improved and/or reworked. This can be done by analysing the matrix.
Vertical analysis
Horizontal analysis
In order to have a view of individuals’ roles, one has to read the matrix in a vertical way. This allows to spot:
Whether the workload of someone is too heavy (a lot of Rs) or instead, too low (few Rs)
The scope of responsibilities of a person throughout the project. The more Rs a person has, the more responsibilities.
People playing a minor role (the ones who were not assigned any A or R)
Thanks to this analysis, the project manager can detect inconsistencies and adjust the role distribution.
The horizontal analysis enables to have a better view of the organisation of tasks. In fact, one can easily identify significant problems by looking at the row of a specific task and by observing roles linked to the latter:
If there are too many Rs in a row, the task is either truly complex and requires a colossal amount of work; It is highly likely that it has been overestimated and that the work will be done more than once.
On the other hand, if there are not enough Rs, can the task be performed correctly, and in time?
No A in the entire row: Where is the person in charge? Someone must be designated accountable.
And instead if there is more than one A, who is truly in charge? The final decisions must be taken by only one person.
Use Case
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