Clarify roles and responsibilities with RACI
Use the power of the RACI matrix to establish clear roles and responsibilities in your projects
The RACI matrix is a management tool used to clarify roles and responsibilities in projects and processes. In the matrix, every task or deliverable is assigned to the roles involved based on the following criteria:
- Responsible (R): The person or role responsible for completing the task or deliverable.
- Accountable (A): The individual or role that owns the decision-making and outcome of the task. Often, there's only one accountable party per task.
- Consulted (C):Those who provide input or feedback on the task but aren't directly responsible for its execution.
- Informed (I): Stakeholders who need to be kept informed about the task's progress or outcome but don't actively participate in its execution.
By defining these roles, the RACI matrix helps eliminate confusion and streamline communication and processes in an organization.
Vorgangsspezifische Rollen
For the management of projects, the RACI method defines four task-specific roles through which project participants can be related to a task. Normally, roles are assigned for a project, not for a task. For example, there is a project manager or a Scrum Master for the entire project. RACI gives us significantly more flexibility with the ability to assign roles task-specifically.
The RACI method does not replace other techniques such as work breakdown structures, Gantt charts, or network diagrams, but rather complements them. The RACI matrix is also called the “Responsibility Assignment Matrix” (RAM).
With this method, responsibilities and accountabilities in a project or company can be represented clearly, differentiated, and concretely. Many report that this technique has made their project management more efficient. Overall, the processes became less frictional and there were fewer misunderstandings, as everyone knew their role and responsibilities in the project. In project meetings, there were fewer lengthy and fruitless discussions. Decisions were made faster and the workload was distributed more fairly.
Improve your management with the RACI diagram
In the RACI table, tasks or activities are listed in rows and project participants in columns. In the intersection field of task and participant, the respective role that connects the team member with this task is entered. There are four types of relationships or roles in the RACI system:
- the Responsible (Worker) - Who completes the task?
- the Accountable (Manager) - Who makes decisions and takes actions for the task(s)?
- the Consulted (Advisors) - Who is consulted and informed about decisions and tasks?
- the Informed (Informees) - Who is informed about decisions and actions during the project?
In the intersection fields, you enter R, A, C, or I, or leave it blank. For each task, there should only be one R, meaning there should not be more than one R per row.
RACI example
To explain the RACI principle for project management, let's refer to the table above. The process described indicates that Karl is the decision-maker (Accountable) for questions regarding the task "Project planning." Madeleine is responsible (Responsible) for completing the project planning. Babette can be consulted (Consulted) because she is aware of dependencies between this project and her own, and she can alert Madeleine to potential conflicts.
Furthermore, the process ensures that Stephen generally receives copies of the meeting minutes (Informed), as he needs this information to manage his own tasks.
What advantages does the RACI method give you?
When applied correctly, the RACI method offers you a number of advantages:
- Transparency: The RACI chart clearly shows who is responsible for what. This avoids unnecessary discussions and resolves misunderstandings.
- Fair task distribution: It becomes evident if certain employees are assigned too many or too few tasks.
- No bottlenecks: It becomes clear if employees appear as consultants in too many places in the process, potentially slowing down project progress.
- Targeted communication: If an employee is listed as an informee for almost every task, one must question whether this is really necessary. The RACI method helps build an efficient communication scheme in projects and companies. Information is systematically directed exactly where it is useful, avoiding unnecessary communication by the watering can principle.
Setting up the scheme
This is how you set up a corresponding scheme for your project:
- Create a list of project tasks
- Identify the project participants
- Assign a worker (Responsible) and a manager (Accountable) for each task or activity
- Ensure that there is only one worker per task
- Discuss with all workers and managers to ensure everyone understands their tasks and roles
- Add consultants (Consulted) and informees (Informed) if necessary
Tips for the RACI matrix
- The RACI matrix should not be misused as a control instrument. The RACI matrix cannot fix a dysfunctional team. Team spirit and trust must be present.
- The tasks must be clearly and understandably formulated. The scope of a task must be clear.
- For example, specify in a project manual who is responsible for creating and maintaining the RACI chart.
- Determine whether a consultant can and must act on their own initiative or only upon request.
- Clarify that the worker (Responsible) is responsible for a task, not the manager (Accountable). It is, of course, possible for both roles to be represented by the same person.
- Ensure that each row has exactly one Responsible (R). It rarely works well when multiple people are responsible. If in doubt, split a task into two sub-tasks.
- Avoid bottlenecks with too many Cs in a row.
- Ensure that the RACI method is integrated into the regular project planning. It is useless if you manage the RACI matrix in an Excel sheet while project planning and tracking are done in another tool.
RACI and Agile
There are Scrum experts who believe that RACI does not fit into Scrum without modifications. Although there are many variations of RACI, some practitioners feel the need to add new Scrum-specific roles (such as "F = Facilitator / Coach"), new Scrum-specific activities and responsibilities (such as "ensuring consistency of Scrum practices across teams or removing impediments"), or new positions and roles (such as "Scrum Team") into the matrix.
In the simplest case, according to the Scrum Guide, the Product Owner is the only person responsible for managing the Product Backlog. Even if the Product Owner delegates work to the development team, they remain accountable (Accountable).
According to Scrum, stakeholders are also accountable and must be involved in the overall process. Therefore, they should be treated as managers in the RACI Matrix.
Let RACI work for you
The RACI matrix is highly effective when integrated into a task management system. This ensures automatically that there is always exactly one person responsible for a task.
With an appropriate auto-email scheme in project management, you can specify precisely who will be informed, when, and how for each RACI role. Additionally, an authorization scheme based on RACI roles can be established to determine who has access to a task and who does not.
RACI variants
There are a number of variations of the RACI method for project management to clearly define responsibilities and accountabilities. You can find a relatively comprehensive list on Wikipedia.
DRASCI: This adds the roles "Driver" and "Support." The "Driver" assists the responsible person in management, while the "Support" assists them at the execution level.
RASCI: The standard RACI matrix supplemented with "Support," meaning the people who support the "Responsible" person in the process of executing a task.
RACI-VS: This adds two more areas: If a role is assigned "Verify," this person ensures that the defined product characteristics have been implemented as desired. "Signatory" means that a person approves the "Verify" results. Compared to the standard RACI, additional verification steps are included here.
CAIRO: Almost the standard RACI, but supplemented with "Omitted." When this value is assigned, participants are deliberately excluded from a task.
RACI in Allegra
In Allegra, the RACI principle is used in two contexts:
- To control access and permissions
- To manage notifications
Each task can be assigned (R)esponsible, (A)ccountable, (C)onsulted, and (I)nformed roles. These RACI roles are called "Worker," "Manager," "Editor," and "Reader" in Allegra. It is configurable which individuals or groups can assume these roles in a given area. For example, a user can be granted edit permissions for a specific task, even though they might not have visibility into other users' tasks.
Notifications are also managed through the RACI roles. For each role a user has in relation to a task, they can specify the events they want to be notified about. For instance, a manager might only want to be notified when a task status changes to "completed," while a worker is interested in almost all changes.
This pragmatic use of the RACI principle leads to an advantageous system for access control and notifications.