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What Is A RACI Matrix?

The RACI matrix is a responsibility assignment chart that maps tasks in a project to roles of Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. It clarifies responsibilities and ensures all tasks are assigned. To create a RACI matrix, identify tasks and stakeholders, then assign roles for each task. Analyze the matrix to resolve conflicts like multiple people accountable for a task or stakeholders with too many responsibilities. Ensuring agreement and analyzing role assignments leads to a structured, successful project.

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Ankit Mishra
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552 views3 pages

What Is A RACI Matrix?

The RACI matrix is a responsibility assignment chart that maps tasks in a project to roles of Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. It clarifies responsibilities and ensures all tasks are assigned. To create a RACI matrix, identify tasks and stakeholders, then assign roles for each task. Analyze the matrix to resolve conflicts like multiple people accountable for a task or stakeholders with too many responsibilities. Ensuring agreement and analyzing role assignments leads to a structured, successful project.

Uploaded by

Ankit Mishra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is a RACI matrix?

The RACI matrix is a responsiblity assignment chart that maps out every task,
milestone or key decision involved in completing a project and assigns which roles
are Responsible for each action item, which personnel are Accountable, and, where
appropriate, who needs to be Consulted or Informed. The acronym RACI stands for
the four roles that stakeholders might play in any project.

In almost 100 percent of these rescue efforts, I have found that there is no shared
understanding of participant roles and responsibilities, nor is there explicit
documentation to support it. Establishing such a consensus by employing the RACI
model almost always gets a stuck project moving again, and enables the key
stakeholders to readily deal with the other issues that require resolution.

RACI matrix roles and responsibilities


The RACI model brings structure and clarity to describing the roles that stakeholders
play within a project. The RACI matrix clarifies responsibilities and ensures that
everything the project needs done is assigned someone to do it.

The four roles that stakeholders might play in any project include the following:

 Responsible: People or stakeholders who do the work. They must complete


the task or objective or make the decision. Several people can be
jointly Responsible.
 Accountable: Person or stakeholder who is the "owner" of the work. He or
she must sign off or approve when the task, objective or decision is complete.
This person must make sure that responsibilities are assigned in the matrix for
all related activities. Success requires that there is only one
person Accountable, which means that "the buck stops there."
 Consulted: People or stakeholders who need to give input before the work
can be done and signed-off on. These people are "in the loop" and active
participants.
 Informed: People or stakeholders who need to be kept "in the picture." They
need updates on progress or decisions, but they do not need to be formally
consulted, nor do they contribute directly to the task or decision.

How to create a RACI matrix


The simple process for creating a RACI model includes the following six steps:

1. Identify all the tasks involved in delivering the project and list them on the left-
hand side of the chart in completion order. For IT projects, this is most
effectively addressed by incorporating the PLC steps and deliverables. (This
is illustrated in the detailed example below, after the simplified version
immediately below.)
2. Identify all the project stakeholders and list them along the top of the chart.
3. Complete the cells of the model identifying who has responsibility,
accountability and who will be consulted and informed for each task.
4. Ensure every task has at least one stakeholder Responsible for it.
5. No tasks should have more than one stakeholder Accountable. Resolve any
conflicts where there is more than one for a particular task.
6. Share, discuss and agree the RACI model with your stakeholders at the start
of the project. This includes resolving any conflicts or ambiguities.

Here is an illustration of such a simplified RACI model:

RACI matrix best practices


Simply creating a RACI matrix is not enough. You must ensure that the matrix maps
to a successful strategy. Here, conflicts and ambiguities in the plan must be
hammered out.

Resolving conflicts and ambiguities in a RACI matrix involves looking across each
row and up and down each column for the following:

Analysis for each stakeholder:

 Are there too many R's: Does one stakeholder have too much of the project
assigned to them?
 No empty cells: Does the stakeholder need to be involved in so many of the
activities? Can Responsible be changed to Consulted, or Consulted changed
to Informed? I.e., are there too many "cooks in this kitchen" to keep things
moving? (And if so, what does that say about the culture within which this
project is being managed?)
 Buy-in: Does each stakeholder totally agree with the role that they are
specified to play in this version of the model? When such agreement is
achieved, that should be included in the project's charter and documentation.

Analysis for each PLC step or deliverable:

No R's: Who is doing the work in this step and getting things done? Whose role is it
to take the initiative?
Too many R's: Is this another sign of too many "cooks in this kitchen" to keep things
moving?
No A's: Who is Accountable? There must be one 'A' for every step of the PLC. One
stakeholder must be Accountable for the thing happening -- "the buck stops" with this
person.
More than one A: Is there confusion on decision rights? Stakeholders with
accountability have the final say on how the work should be done and how conflicts
are resolved. Multiple A's invite slow and contentious decision-making.
Every box filled in: Do all the stakeholders really need to be involved? Are there
justifiable benefits in involving all the stakeholders, or is this just covering all the
bases?
A lot of C's: Do all the stakeholders need to be routinely Consulted, or can they be
kept Informed and raise exceptional circumstances if they feel they need to
be Consulted? Too many C's in the loop really slows down the project.
Are all true stakeholders included in this model: Sometimes this is more of a
challenge to ensure, as it's an error of omission. This is often best addressed by a
steering committee or management team.

RACI matrix in project management


It is the above analyses, which are readily enabled by the use of a RACI matrix, that
deliver the real benefit of the model. It is the integration of the model with a specific
PLC that ensures that the project is structured for success. Without either
component, problems with the structure of the project management process may
remain hidden until (or even while...) they cause the project to bog down. Making the
time and effort to create a customized PLC/RACI for each significant project is an
opportunity to design your project management process for project success.

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