what does responsibility assignment matrix means

What Is a RACI Chart? How to Use RACI to Assign Project Roles

It’s a fact: Complex projects make it easy for teams to lose track of tasks.

You might have an air-tight project plan and a stellar team to back it up. But if you’re not crystal clear about assignments—or even involvement—on a task level, confusion, crankiness, and even demotivation will creep into your project team.

Lucky for you, avoiding those issues is as simple as creating a RACI chart. 

In this article, we’ll explain what RACI stands for and how it’s used in project management. We’ll also share a few practical examples so you can see how to apply the RACI model to different types of projects.

What is a RACI chart?

Raci definitions explained, benefits of the raci model in project management, how to make a raci chart, raci rules and best practices.

• RACI chart examples

When to use or skip a RACI chart for your project

Common raci pitfalls and how to avoid them.

A RACI chart—also known as a responsibility assignment matrix —is a diagram used in project management to define team roles across 4 categories: Responsible , Accountable , Consulted , and Informed . It helps clarify who does the work, who calls the shots, whose opinion matters, and who needs to stay in the loop for each task, milestone, or decision.

A RACI chart enables you to visualize roles and responsibilities at a more granular level than simple resource assignments. That way team members and stakeholders know what’s expected of them so confusion doesn’t get in the way of project success.

RACI stands for Responsible , Accountable , Consulted , and Informed . Each letter in the acronym represents the level of ownership each person involved in a project will have on an individual deliverable. 

This simple chart gives you an at-a-glance view of RACI meanings and how many people to assign to each role in your RACI matrix .

R = Responsible

This team member does the work to complete the task. Every task needs at least one Responsible party, but it’s okay to assign more.

Examples of people you might assign to the Responsible role:

• Content writer
• Graphic designer
• UI/UX designer
• Software developer
• Business analyst
• QA specialist

A = Accountable

This person delegates work and is the last one to review the task or deliverable before it’s deemed complete. On some tasks, the Responsible party may also serve as the Accountable one. Just be sure you only have one Accountable person assigned to each task or deliverable. (Note: It might not be your project manager!)

Examples of people you might assign to the Accountable role:

• Project manager
• Product manager
• Department head

C = Consulted

Every deliverable is strengthened by review and consultation from more than one team member. Consulted parties are typically the people who provide input based on either how it will impact their future project work or their domain of expertise on the deliverable itself.‍

Examples of people you might assign to the Consulted role:

• Software architect
• Content editor
• Creative director
• Compliance officer
• Security specialist
• Legal counsel

I = Informed

Informed stakeholders simply need to be kept in the loop on project progress, rather than roped into the details of every deliverable.

Examples of people you might assign to the Informed role:

• Executive leadership
• External clients
• Team members assigned to dependent tasks
• Customer support team
• Administrative staff

Responsible vs Accountable meanings in RACI

The same person can be both Responsible and Accountable for a task in RACI—including a project manager. But they’re not one and the same. So what’s the difference?

• Responsible is a task-oriented designation that applies to the person (or people) actually completing the work. A whole team can be responsible for the execution of one task. ‍
• Accountable is an outcome-oriented designation that applies to a single person who reports on the work, whether in status updates or upon delivery. Being Accountable means you must answer for and/or sign off on the deliverable and deal with the consequences if it falls short of goals.

At its core, the RACI model helps you set clear expectations about project roles and responsibilities. That way you don’t have multiple people working on the same task or against one another because tasks weren’t clearly defined on the front end.

A RACI chart also encourages team members to take responsibility for their work—or defer to someone else when needed. Essentially, you’ll remove personal judgment and politics from your process and focus on your team’s ability to act responsibly within a framework you’ve created. Sounds pretty sweet, huh?

Building a RACI chart for your project is a relatively simple task. The hardest part is thinking through all the people involved in your project and what role makes the most sense for individuals at each stage of work.

You’ll want to map out a RACI chart for your project during the planning stage. This ensures responsibilities are clearly defined before work begins and gives you time to adjust to avoid any gaps or overlaps in assignments.

Here are the basic steps for making a RACI chart:

• List key project phases, tasks, and/or milestones in a column down the left side of your chart. You can get as detailed as you want, depending on the complexity of your project (and attention-span of your project team and stakeholders). 
• Enter the people involved in your project across the top row of your chart. Each individual should serve as the header of a single column. You can use names or job roles—whatever makes sense for your team and project.
• Go line by line down the chart, and assign each person across the row an R, A, C, or I to indicate the role they’ll play on that particular task.

Once your RACI chart is good to go, you can create a communication plan that aligns with the roles you’ve outlined for project teams and stakeholders.

Want to save time? Download our free RACI Excel template , or see how TeamGantt's built-in RACI feature works.

Using a RACI chart is a whole lot easier when you follow a few simple rules. Once your RACI chart is complete, review it to be sure it meets these criteria:

• Every task has at least one Responsible person.
• There’s one (and only one!) Accountable party assigned to each task to allow for clear decision-making.
• No team members are overloaded with too many Responsible tasks. You can use TeamGantt’s Workloads report to check availability across all your active projects.
• Every team member has a role on each task. (It’s not uncommon for some folks to be Informed on most tasks.)

These best practices can help you get the most out of RACI:

• Focus on project tasks, milestones, and decisions in the RACI chart. Avoid generic or administrative to-dos like team meetings or status reports .
• Align the tasks in your RACI chart with your project plan so there’s no confusion about details and due dates. (TeamGantt does this work for you by tying your RACI chart directly to your plan!)
• Keep RACI definitions close by because they can be tough to remember sometimes! ‍
• Assign the Responsible team members to tasks in TeamGantt .

Lay a clear path to success with a visual plan that’s easy to understand, and keep everyone in sync with flexible workflows and team collaboration.

RACI chart examples: Practical application in the real world

Let’s take a closer look at how you might put the RACI model to work on real-life projects. 

Producing a marketing handout

We’ll start with a simple example. Imagine you’re creating a RACI chart for a handout your marketing manager will distribute at an industry conference. 

Basic tasks for this project might include:

• Write project brief
• Create content
• Design handout
• Review first draft
• Update handout
• Approve final
• Send to printer

In this project example, we’ve assigned RACI roles to 7 key team members:

• Marketing manager
• Editorial director

Let’s zoom in on the RACI roles we mapped out for the Create content task example so you understand the why behind these assignments. 

• Responsible : The content writer is listed as Responsible for this task, so that’s who will actively work on content creation.
• Accountable : The editorial director is listed as Accountable for this task because that’s who is ultimately on the line for content quality and accuracy. Once the content is written, she’s the one who will review it to ensure it meets their company’s editorial standards.
• Consulted : The marketing manager is listed as Consulted . Since the marketing manager is the subject matter expert for the presentation, the writer can go to them for input or help filling in content gaps along the way.
• Informed : Several people have been assigned to the Informed role, though for different reasons. Since the Design handout task depends on this one, we want to make sure the writer keeps the creative director and designer informed on the status of content creation. The project manager and CMO are listed as Informed simply because they want to be kept in the loop about how work is progressing.

Developing a new software product

Now let’s look at a more complex project example. 

Developers who use an Agile workflow to tackle the job likely know what they need to do because there’s a constant stream of communication. But cross-functional departments and senior leaders might need more clarity. 

Here’s how you might map RACI roles to major tasks in a software development project , broken down by key tasks and RACI roles. (For the Informed assignments, we only listed people who need detailed progress updates to keep our example easier to read.)

Market Research

• Responsible : Business Analyst, Marketing Manager
• Accountable : Product Manager
• Consulted : Sales Representative, Customer Support
• Informed : Project Manager, Software Developers

Requirement Gathering

• Responsible : Business analyst
• Accountable : Product manager
• Consulted : UI/UX Designer, Software Architect
• Informed : Project manager, QA analysts

Design and Prototyping

• Responsible : UI/UX Designer
• Consulted : Business analyst, software developers
• Informed : Marketing manager, QA analysts

Software Development

• Responsible : Software Developers/Engineers
• Accountable : Software Architect
• Consulted : Product Manager, QA Analysts
• Informed : Project Manager, Technical Writer
• Responsible : QA Analysts/Engineers
• Accountable : Project manager
• Consulted : Software Developers, DevOps Engineer
• Informed : Product Manager, Technical Writer
• Responsible : DevOps Engineer
• Accountable : Project Manager
• Consulted : Software Developers, QA Analysts
• Informed : Product Manager, Customer Support

Maintenance

• Responsible : DevOps Engineer, Software Developers
• Consulted : QA Analysts, Technical Writer
• Responsible : DevOps Engineer, QA Analysts
• Consulted : Software Developers, Technical Writer

Marketing and Sales

• Responsible : Marketing Manager, Sales Representative
• Accountable : Marketing Manager
• Consulted : Product Manager, Customer Support

User Training

• Responsible : Customer Support Specialist
• Consulted : Technical Writer, UI/UX Designer
• Informed : All project team members

A RACI chart serves just about every project well. But it’s especially helpful when tasks require multiple resources, run concurrently, or depend on other tasks.

Here are a few scenarios when the RACI model is useful:

• The decision-making or approval process could hold up the project.
• There’s conflict about task ownership or decision-making.
• The project workload feels like it’s not distributed evenly.
• You experience turnover on a team and need to onboard someone quickly to a new role.

Of course, not all teams and projects are created equally. You might work with a team who just happens to communicate really well and stays on top of their own work. (Lucky you!) Or maybe your project is small enough that it would be silly to take the time to go through this exercise. 

In cases like these, don’t worry about taking the extra step of creating a RACI chart. Just be sure you have a clear plan in place to guide your team and project.

Further reading : How to Create a Realistic Project Plan: Templates & Examples

Now let’s walk through a few common mistakes that could hinder your RACI chart’s effectiveness.

Failing to get buy-in from your team and stakeholders

Creating a RACI chart in a vacuum is never a good idea. In a best-case scenario, you’d sit down with your team and stakeholders to walk through the role assignments on each task. But let’s be real: That’s not always possible.

Just be sure everyone represented has acknowledged and agreed to the roles and responsibilities you’ve laid out. More importantly, you want to check that your chart eliminates any further project confusion.

Setting it and forgetting it

It’s easy to build a RACI chart at the start of a project, then let it collect dust once the real work begins. But remember: This chart will defend you against mishaps that arise when you have too many cooks in the kitchen or a team member who thinks someone else is handling the work.

That’s why it’s important to keep these roles top of mind throughout a project’s life cycle. You can do this by reviewing RACI assignments for upcoming tasks in weekly status update meetings and making sure everyone involved in a project has easy access to the RACI chart. 

In TeamGantt, you can assign RACI roles directly in your project plan so they’re clearly visible as team members work their way to the finish line.

Overcomplicating stakeholder communication

If you have a lot of Consulted and Informed roles on your chart, make sure you have an easy and lightweight way to keep them informed. It could be as simple as making sure department heads and senior leaders have access to your project plan so they can follow progress along the way. 

Managing a project with external clients or stakeholders? Sharing a view-only link to your project in TeamGantt is a great option for looping in folks outside your organization.

Further reading: A Project Manager’s Guide to Effective Stakeholder Management

Keep teams in sync—and accountable—with TeamGantt

A RACI chart is a simple tool that makes projects easier to manage by creating less confusion and more accountability. But you’ve got more than roles and responsibilities to keep straight.

TeamGantt makes it easy to build a project plan your whole team can contribute to and collaborate on. Everything happens online, so you can stay on top of deadlines and monitor progress in real time.

Use our built-in RACI chart to assign roles and keep them visible from project start to finish, so everyone knows how they contribute to success.

Try TeamGantt’s Pro Manager plan free for 30 days!

What is a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) in Project Management?

Fahad Usmani, PMP

March 30, 2024

A responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) in project management is a key document that distinguishes stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities. The RACI chart is the most popular example of a RAM that clarifies stakeholders’ roles and defines their involvement.

RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. Each team member in the RACI chart has at least one role.

All stakeholders refer to RAM in case of conflict regarding the roles and responsibilities in assignments or duties. RAM helps reduce conflict in projects to a great extent. Using this document, every team member will know their roles and the responsibilities of other team members.

The roles in the RACI matrix are as follows:

• Responsible: This stakeholder is responsible for completing the task.
• Accountable: This stakeholder is accountable for the task. They will make decisions and delegate work to the stakeholders who are responsible for completing the task.
• Consulted: These stakeholders will be consulted on any decisions made about the task.
• Informed: These stakeholders only require an updated status report on the progress of the task.

Responsibility Assignment Matrix Example

As I said, the RACI chart is the most popular example of RAM.

The table below shows the RAM example using the RACI chart:

Some other less-popular responsibility assignment matrix examples are as follows:

• RASCI Chart: This chart is also known as the “RASCI matrix,” as the letter S is added, which means “supportive.” 
• DACI Chart: DACI stands for “Driver, Approver, Contributor, and Informed.” 
• RAPID Chart: RAPID stands for “Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, and Decide.” 
• CARS: CARS stands for “Communicate, Approval, Responsible, and Support.” 
• CLAM: CLAM stands for “Contribute, Lead, Approve, and Monitor.” 

Responsibility Assignment Matrix Template

The table below shows the basic template for the responsibility assignment matrix.

RAM is a key tool in project management . It helps the project manager assign roles and responsibilities. Additionally, it ensures that the team stays on its path and that no one interferes with each other’s roles. Finally, RAM ensures that every task has responsible and accountable stakeholders assigned to it.

This topic is important from a PMP exam point of view.

I am Mohammad Fahad Usmani, B.E. PMP, PMI-RMP. I have been blogging on project management topics since 2011. To date, thousands of professionals have passed the PMP exam using my resources.

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This is the most popular Question Bank for the PMP Exam. To date, it has helped over 10,000 PMP aspirants prepare for the exam. 

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The Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)

Knowing where the buck ultimately stops.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

It takes a lot of effort to keep a large project running smoothly. With a large number of variables, people, and deliverables, it’s hard to keep on top of everything that’s happening. Consider the following scenario:

Hal (the distressed project manager): "What do you mean, we don’t have the test results yet?! What has Katy been doing? Get Katy!"

Katy: "No, Hal, I wasn’t responsible for getting that done. Joan has more expertise in that area, remember? I’ll ask Joan what happened."

Joan: "Gee, Katy, I know I have more experience with these reports, but I was waiting for you to contact me so we could review them together."

Do you recognize anyone you know? This type of situation is repeated daily in organizations across the globe. And most of the time, there’s no incompetence or bad intentions involved. More often, problems like this are the result of inadequate planning and poor communication.

Successful projects have a clear breakdown of who is ultimately responsible for each aspect of the project. Without clear, written, and agreed-upon accountability, it’s far too easy to for communication to fail and for responsibilities to be muddled.

So how do you avoid this?

Developing a Responsibility Assignment Matrix

One tool that project managers use to keep these assignments clear is the Responsibility Assignment Matrix (also called the RAM, or the Responsibility Matrix). This matches deliverables with the people who are responsible for them. For every piece of the project, the matrix shows who needs to contribute what for the project to be completed.

For example, let’s say that you’re upgrading your customer service delivery system, and you need to train your staff to use new procedures and tools.

Step One: Define Your Deliverables

Using a Work Breakdown Structure , you define three key deliverables for this training project, with a few subcategories for each:

• Survey current practice.
• Define new practice.
• Locate resources.
• Prepare training schedule.
• Manage training.
• Re-survey practices after implementation.
• Analyze results.

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a project planning tool used to break a project down into smaller, more manageable pieces of work (deliverables). It's not a list of every task: rather, it's a "tree" structure showing the meaningful groups of activities that make up the main segments of the project.

Step Two: Identify the People Involved

Map out who is on your project team. By creating a chart of individuals who are available, you can then delegate work assignments based on expertise, and you can recruit talent that you’re missing. This step is often called an “Organization Breakdown Structure” because it creates an organizational chart for your team.

Step Three: Create Your Responsibility Matrix

Draw a matrix. The deliverables are the column headings, and the people are the row titles.

With your team, determine accountabilities as well as other levels of involvement for each item in your Work Breakdown Structure.

A useful framework to determine role assignments is RACI . This defines four levels of involvement:

R = Responsible (People who do the work). A = Accountable (People who make sure the work gets done). C = Consulted (People who provide input before and during the work). I = Informed (People who are kept informed of progress).

Project Management Institute, "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)" – Fifth Edition, (2013). Copyright and all rights reserved. Material from this publication has been reproduced with the permission of PMI.

Other levels of involvement may include “assist”, “coordinate”, “sign off”, and “review”. You can decide how to assign responsibility for your project and your team. But you must be sure that ultimate accountability and responsibility for performing the work are agreed upon and communicated.

Step Four: Communicate

When your Responsibility Assignment Matrix is complete, communicate it to all stakeholders. It’s a good idea to post it in an area where people will see it. Used effectively, the RAM helps people understand what they should be doing at all stages of the project.

Project teams can easily lose focus on what needs to be done and who needs to do it. People may assume that somebody else is doing something – and before long, key pieces of work fall behind schedule.

To avoid this common problem, consider developing a Responsibility Assignment Matrix for your team. This matrix clearly identifies which role each team member has agreed to take on for each of the project’s main deliverables.

With these assignments, you can eliminate miscommunication about who’s doing what – and you can help to ensure that your project is successful.

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How to Make a Responsibility Assignment Matrix for a Project (Template Included)

The most important resource you’ll employ to deliver the project is people. They have to fit into the schedule and maintain the project budget. Defining what their roles and responsibilities are when executing tasks and delivering on the project goals is an important part of controlling the project.

How can you coordinate all the people who are involved in a project so they know what they’re doing and don’t block others from doing what they are assigned? Using a responsibility assignment matrix can help. An assignment matrix gives your project a team that gets things done.

What is a Responsibility Assignment Matrix in Project Management?

A responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) is a project management chart used to identify and define the various people and organizations and outline each of their roles in working on tasks or delivering a part of the project.

Project managers use an assignment matrix to clarify what cross-functional teams do within the boundaries of the project and its numerous processes. Sometimes a responsibility assignment matrix is required when responding to a request for proposal (RFP).

The responsibility assignment matrix can also be called a RACI matrix, which stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed.

• Responsible: Notes who is responsible for executing the task, which is then assigned to them.
• Accountable: Notes who has decision-making authority and how that power is delegated throughout the project team.
• Consulted: Notes who is able to offer insight into the task, from team members to stakeholders.
• Informed: Notes who is updated on what in terms of progress and performance, as well as when and how this information is disseminated.

This creates a map of connections between activities and project team members. Depending on the size of the project, there can be several assignment matrices used for various project levels.

Why Create a Responsibility Assignment Matrix?

The assignment matrix identifies what everyone on the team is responsible for, which means not only what their duties are, but how they participate in the project. Some will have defined tasks, others will offer help with work, while there are some who are designated as decision-makers. These groups all have an identity and function within the project to help guide it towards a successful end.

Clear communication leads to more efficient projects. An assignment matrix facilitates better communication between team members and provides transparency by creating a system to make sure everyone is updated and always on the same page. Belaboring communications can bog down a project with too many pointless meetings and confusing interactions in which people try to understand what they’re supposed to be doing. Using the responsibility assignment matrix helps, but having project management software that connects teams in real-time is ideal.

ProjectManager manages project information by allowing teams to attach files directly to tasks, and our unlimited file storage keeps important project documents at your fingertips anywhere, anytime. Commenting on tasks can save time and tagging others in the project team creates a communication process that avoids the pitfalls of redundancies or unnecessary meetings.

When Should a Responsibility Assignment Matrix Be Created?

The responsibility assignment matrix would be created at the start of the project. You’d want to have everyone on the project team aware of where they stand in terms of their involvement before they start executing tasks.

As much as its use is a preventative measure, it can be used prescriptively. If you’re deep into the project and things are not moving as planned, there could be communication gridlock. If team members are not in the loop, or misconstrue what they’re supposed to be doing, using a responsibility assignment matrix might untie up those knots in the communication channel.

If there’s a problem with leadership overruling suggestions on how to advance the project and this is seen as a problem, it’s likely that the roles and responsibilities of the project team need refining. The responsibility assignment matrix defines who has authority to make decisions and using it or revisiting can determine if the right people are in that position.

In fact, any of the definitions might need reexamining at any phase in the project. Perhaps tasks are falling behind schedule. This could be because team members aren’t aware of what tasks they own. Anytime a delay occurs, returning to the assignment matrix is a good first step, even if you went through the process as you should during the planning stage of the project.

How to Create a Responsibility Assignment Matrix

The actual making of a responsibility assignment matrix is not as difficult as getting everyone on board with what their roles and responsibilities are.

Therefore, you want to include your team in the process, get their input and eventually buy-in without spending too much time and energy on the process. Follow these steps to make sure everyone is in agreement and you’ll have a successful responsibility assignment.

• Identify all the participants involved in the project, from team members to stakeholders and everyone in between.
• List all deliverables associated with the project. Use a work breakdown structure to make sure you don’t miss any.
• Meet with team members on how to execute the tasks to create the deliverables. Every task needs to be discussed in terms of the team’s responsibility and authority.
• Draft the responsibility assignment matrix using a table with the project tasks listed on the left-hand column. Across the top add the name of everyone in the project.
• Where the tasks meet the project team member, assign whether they’re responsible, accountable, consulted or informed.
• When completed, share the responsibility assignment matrix with the project team and stakeholders and hold a meeting if necessary to make sure everyone understands their part in the project. If you’re working in a shared space, print out a copy and post it.

Free Responsibility Assignment Matrix Template

Using a RACI template is a shortcut that sets up your team and the project for success. ProjectManager is more than an award-winning software that organizes tasks, teams and projects to streamline work and boost productivity, it’s also the online hub for all things project management.

Among the hundreds of blog posts, guidebooks and tutorial videos are dozens of free templates that can help you through every phase of your project’s life cycle. Using our free RACI template will help you guide all the project teams better, allowing them to know where they stand in relation to the project and what their level of responsibility and accountability is.

Use it at the start of the project to avoid delays and untangle any communicative knots that are preventing the project from progressing as planned. To keep your project on track, download our free RACI template and get a head start on building a workable responsibility assignment matrix.

Best Practices

Using our free RACI template is a good start, but you have to make sure you fill it in correctly. A responsibility assignment matrix is only as good as the effort put into creating it. Here are some best practices to apply when you’re in the process of building your assignment matrix.

• Involve the team: They’re the ones who will be executing the work. You want their input and buy-in to avoid any costly mistakes or time-consuming questions about what wasn’t made clear at the beginning of the project.
• Identify every single task: Identify all the tasks required to reach your final deliverable. Once you have that thorough list make sure that there is only one person on the team who is accountable.
• Update your RACI regularly: Make sure that each new one is clearly marked as the most current version and is distributed to everyone on the team. There will be times when you’ll want to revisit the responsibility assignment matrix or changes in personnel will require an edit.
• Share responsibility viably: One person shouldn’t have to shoulder the bulk of the responsibilities for the project and you want to give authority throughout the project team and not just among the very top management team.
• Optimize tasks: Managers can use the RACI matrix to see if too many team members have been assigned to a task. Maybe these workers could be spread out for greater productivity. There could be too many people listed as consulted, which slows down the process. The assignment matrix is endlessly useful.

How ProjectManager Helps You Manage Projects Better

ProjectManager is a cloud-based tool that connects everyone in real-time to facilitate planning, monitoring and reporting on the project. It works to give everyone on the project team a job and the knowledge as to where they have authority and when to consult others, as well as defining the reporting process.

Let’s look at the people who are responsible, for example, the team who execute the project. Once invited into the software, you can share the project plan, assign them tasks, add detailed direction, add a deadline and tag for priority and more. The teams can then collaborate by attaching files and images to the tasks and commenting in real-time to work better together.

Those who need to stay informed of the project can do so by also getting invited into the project and sharing plans and schedules with them. Stakeholders can stay updated with reporting features that can generate reports on project variance, cost, time and more with one click. Then share them as a PDF. Reports can even be quickly filtered to zero in on the data stakeholders are interested in.

The responsibility assignment matrix can help you reallocate your resources when things aren’t progressing as planned. Use our software to get further insight. The resource management features include a workload chart that’s color-coded so it’s easy to see who has too many tasks and who can take on more work. Then you can simply reallocate those resources from the workload page to help your team work more productively.

ProjectManager gets you organized, keeps your team focused on their tasks and stakeholders in the loop. Gain efficiencies throughout every aspect of your project’s life cycle with an online Gantt chart to schedule work and kanban boards, a visual workflow feature that provides transparency into production. All that and it’s on a collaborative platform to keep everyone connected. Try ProjectManager today for free.

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Your guide to RACI charts, with examples

Can you identify exactly who’s doing what by when for each task, milestone, and deliverable in your project? If not, you might need a RACI chart.

RACI is an acronym to help teams clarify project roles and figure out who the responsible party is for any given task. Whether you've never heard of RACI before or you’re considering creating a RACI chart for your next project, here’s everything you need to know about how to create and use these charts.

What is a RACI chart?

Responsible.  This person is directly in charge of the work. There should only ever be one Responsible role per task so you know who to go to with questions or updates. If a task has more than one Responsible person, you can lose clarity and cause confusion. Instead, aim to add additional collaborators as some of the other RACI roles, which can have more than one person.

Accountable.  The Accountable person is responsible for overseeing overall task completion, though they may not be the person actually doing the work. There are two ways to assign an Accountable role. Sometimes, the Accountable is the project manager (or even the Responsible, though in that case the person is taking on two different roles during the task workflow). In these cases, the Accountable is responsible for making sure all of the work gets done. In other cases, the Accountable is a senior leader or executive who is responsible for approving the work before it’s considered complete. Like the Responsible role, there should only ever be one Accountable.

Consulted.  This will be the person or people who should review and sign off on the work before it’s delivered. There may be multiple Consulted roles for each task,  project milestone , or deliverable.

Informed.  This is the person or group of people who are informed about the progress and completion of work. They probably are not involved in any other aspect of the deliverable.

When should I create RACI charts?

RACI charts are a helpful way to track each stakeholder’s role for a task, milestone, or deliverable—especially if you’re managing a complex project with many decision makers and subject matter experts. With a RACI chart, you can prevent poor decision making and avoid roadblocks in the approvals process that could impact overall project success.

These charts, while different from PERT charts , are especially useful if your stakeholders may be taking on different roles throughout the project. For example, there could be a stakeholder who is Responsible on one deliverable but Informed on another. With a RACI chart, you can clearly outline these details and make sure everyone knows who’s responsible for what.

Example of a RACI chart

To build a RACI chart, list every task, milestone, or deliverable for your project. Then, identify who the Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed team members are for each one.

Let’s say you’re updating the homepage on your website.  Project stakeholders  include:

Head of website

Web developer

You want to create a RACI chart for five tasks and deliverables:

Update homepage CTAs

Update customer story on homepage

Revamp website design

Improve homepage loading speed

Update homepage design

The RACI chart would look like:

Responsible: Copywriter

Accountable: Web developer

Consulted: Head of website

Informed: Designer

Revamp video on homepage

Responsible: Designer

Informed: Copywriter

Responsible: Web developer

Informed: Copywriter & Designer

Pros and cons of RACI charts

Ultimately, the question is: should you create a RACI chart? While RACI charts are a useful tool to identify project responsibilities, they can get a little cumbersome over the lifecycle of a project. Here are the pros and cons of creating a RACI chart for your team’s work:

The benefits of RACI charts

Clear project roles and responsibilities can help your team move fast and reduce confusion about who’s working on what. With a RACI chart, you can ensure you don’t have two team members working on the same thing. As a result, you’ll have an easier time  collaborating  with your team.

RACI charts are also particularly helpful when the decision-making process is split between tasks. There might be scenarios where the Informed on one task or milestone is the Responsible or Consulted on another—in order to have that clearly defined, it’s helpful to track this work in a RACI chart.

RACI chart pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

RACI models focus on the granular, instead of capturing work at the project level. You might know who the Consulted is on a particular task—which is helpful—but knowing that doesn’t help you understand how various stakeholders interact with the broader project work.

Additionally, if you attempt to write out each task and each role, your RACI chart can get bulky. Worse, if your project changes in some way, your RACI chart would immediately become outdated. That can make it hard for you to gain real-time clarity about where each task is in your project workflow.

RACI charts are limited because they aren’t able to adapt to your project needs in real time. In order to establish clear expectations and eliminate confusion on the project level, you need a  project management tool .

Take your RACI chart to the next level

With project management software, every task has an assignee—that’s the Responsible. You can see work on the project level, so the Accountable and Informed don’t have to check in via email or status meetings. And, for any approvals you need from your Consulted, you can track reviews and approvals in one place. That way, your entire RACI team has a central source of truth for all of the work being done.

Instead of having your RACI chart separate from where the work is happening, project management tools capture the topic, assignee, and other important information like the task due date or relative importance. That way, your entire project team has visibility into who’s doing what by when—and you’re not relying on a single person to manage and update your RACI chart. Project management tools update in real time, so you can see exactly where you are in the approval process.

Track who’s doing what by when

Clear team roles and responsibilities help you hit your deliverables on time. Tracking different and complex stakeholder responsibilities in a RACI chart can help you do that—but RACI charts are just the beginning. Learn more about  work management , and how your team can benefit.

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A Comprehensive Project Management Guide for Everything RACI

By Kate Eby | July 15, 2016 (updated September 5, 2023)

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To ensure collaboration and project success, it is crucial for all project stakeholders to understand their roles and responsibilities and those of other project members. This is especially important when project teams are more complex due to their large size, involvement of distributed team members, or reliance on staff from multiple departments. 

RACI stands for Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed. While its origins are murky, the RACI matrix has been adopted by many organizations to associate roles with project deliverables. One Six Sigma tutorial describes RACI this way:

“Typically a task is associated with at least one role or in some cases multiple roles. This ‘Association’ of the role with a task can be divided into the following four association types:

• R esponsible
• A ccountable

The above four types of association of a role to a task represented in a simple task vs. role diagram or matrix is called RACI (pronounced ‘racey’) matrix. So basically the RACI matrix is a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM), designed to assign tasks, activities, responsibilities, accountability, decision making, support to team members of a process/project, and clarify expectations on the level of their participation.” Here is an example of a RACI matrix:

This guide will explain when to use RACI, why it works, guidelines to use it effectively, and the role it can play in effective project management in all industries from construction to healthcare. Lastly, we'll show you that once you've created your own matrix, you'll need a collaborative, real-time tool, like Smartsheet, to manage the rest of the project details — from start to finish.

The Four Association Types

RACI has four association types: responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. Responsible roles produce deliverables; accountable roles check the deliverables; consulted roles advise on tasks; and informed roles are kept informed throughout these processes.

• Responsible: These roles are responsible for completing the task or deliverable. For example, if the responsibility role is a technical writer, this person may be responsible for writing online help files. A software developer wouldn’t write the help files, but might incorporate those files into the product, which would be defined as a different task.
• Accountable: This type of role has the final authority on (or is accountable for) the task’s completion. To take the previous example of a technical writer developing online help and a software developer incorporating the help files, a product manager might be responsible for ensuring that the files make it into the product.
• Consulted: This role functions as an adviser to a task. For example, a team may consult with a Scrum Master as a subject matter expert (SME). Consider advisers carefully, as having too many people in this role can stretch the task time and raise the risk of poor performance.
• Informed: Informed team members are kept up to date on task completion. Charting this role helps to illustrate dependencies among tasks and also ensures transparency into task status. It can be difficult to identify those who need to be informed, so consult various roles to determine who needs status updates. For example, the sales manager may require status updates because a customer has a special interest in feature development.

When to Use RACI

A RACI model is a useful tool for general project management. Use a RACI matrix when processes are stalled due to role confusion, or when role authority is not clearly outlined. We’ve outlined some common use cases for RACI below:  

• If the approval process is bogged down, it may be due to role confusion.
• If decisions are being overruled often and seemingly arbitrarily, this is also a situation that can benefit from clarifying roles.
• Another situation that frequently occurs is that many people perform the same analysis tasks. When tasks are not getting done, it may be that nobody knows who should be doing them.
• When the authority to perform tasks is not understood, it may be time to define roles and tasks, responsibilities, and authority.

Eliminating this sort of confusion and clarifying roles and tasks is the chief function of a RACI Matrix.

RACI is among the most popular models, but there are several alternatives, including:

• PACSI – Used in situations where multiple stakeholders can review and veto the work of a single accountable person. The roles include Performed, Accountable, Control, Suggested, and Informed.
• RAPID – Created by Bain & Company to clarify decision accountability through clear role and responsibility delineation. The roles include Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, and Decide.

The Value of RACI

Implementing a RACI model helps you to involve the most qualified people in your projects. Project managers can use RACI to quickly develop charts that provide clarity to the team. Some major benefits of the RACI model are as follows:

• Eliminating role confusion.
• Preventing over-allocation of resources to one project and under-allocation to another.
• Clearly defining roles to all the people who fill them (clear understanding of expectations is key to a smooth project and reduces the need for conflict resolution later).
• Ensuring no task is overlooked when resources are allocated.
• Providing a fast and efficient way to re-allocate resources when there is turnover. New people can quickly identify their roles in a project and the roles of those with whom they must interact.

Finally, because the Informed category is given equal weight, the RACI Matrix encourages communication between roles. Communication is the key to clearly understanding expectations, which results in a smooth project.

RACI Matrices

A RACI matrix is a collection of all project activities associated with the people or roles responsible for each. Your matrix should include all project elements, including planning, testing, design, and support.

To create a RACI matrix, consider the following steps: 

• Decide How to Chart the Matrix: You can use any number of tools or templates, including a spreadsheet, whiteboard, or software solution.
• Identify the Project Tasks or Deliverables: Meet with key stakeholders to develop a list of project tasks. For this discussion, tasks include necessary activities, like meetings or events, as well as tangible deliverables, like features or products. Plot tasks across the X or Y axis of the matrix. For example, if you are charting a software project developed under Agile, the sprint demo meeting may be a required activity and should be included in the matrix as a task. Don’t forget to add maintenance of the RACI Matrix as its own task. The project manager usually maintains the RACI Matrix.
• Identify the Project Roles: Project roles are labeled across the other axis of the matrix. The project roles make the matrix more understandable and can be useful for adding any data you may have forgotten. As you identify roles, add any tasks that apply to those roles on the task axis. The task axis is also useful for identifying roles and clarifying resource allocation. This is a good time to assign names to roles as well — one name per role is optimal.
• Label the Intersections of the Axes: Where the X and Y axes intersect, label the intersection with an R, A, C , or I to finalize the matrix with who should be responsible, accountable, consulted, or informed on each task.

RACI Guidelines

While RACI matrices will differ by project, there are some broad guidelines that you should always follow. Above all, your matrix should encourage teamwork and inform all people of their roles and assignments. We’ve laid out additional best practices below: 

• Avoid multiple levels of oversight – one level is enough 
• Encourage teamwork
• Maintain chart fluidity – make changes as needed and let people know when things change
• Assign only one Accountable per task
• Ensure Accountable assignees have authority to ensure the task is complete
• Avoid too many consultants as they can take up too much time (waiting for answers, gathering input, etc.) while too few can damage performance, so try to find the "sweet spot”  
• Inform everyone with a role of their assignment

Finding the Right RACI Template

RACI templates save time and provide a starting point for building your chart. Choose a simple, customizable template to ensure that it is as useful as possible for all team and project types.

Some templates use the X axis for the tasks and Y for roles, and others do the opposite. If tasks exceed roles, as they generally do, it is easier to use the X axis for tasks and the Y for roles as you will be able to see the greatest number of roles per task at a glance on most computer monitors. On the other hand, you may find it easier to filter a chart based on role (for instance, filtering to show only the “I” roles for a given task) with the tasks on the X axis. In addition, most templates use some form of color-coding.

Regardless of which template you select, using one will eliminate a lot of basic work in constructing the chart and will free your time to define roles and tasks.

RACI Project Management

RACI project management focuses on creating and managing a RACI matrix to identify and resolve conflicts in roles and revise role categorization. You should approach analysis as a team and encourage all roles to provide feedback.

A RACI Matrix is analyzed vertically and horizontally. Here are some things to look for when reviewing the role axis (whether this is horizontal or vertical):

• If one role has too many responsibilities, should some responsibilities be reallocated or should more people be assigned to the role?
• If only one person is Accountable, is it reasonable to expect that person to make all decisions and could it threaten the project by creating a bottleneck?
• Here are some things to look for when reviewing the Task axis (whether this is horizontal or vertical):
• If there is a task with no one Responsible, should someone be assigned or should the task be eliminated?
• If there is a task where no one is Accountable, who has decision-making authority?
• If there are multiple people Accountable for a task, avoid conflicts by making a single person accountable. 
• If too many people must be consulted, evaluate whether one person can be assigned who talks with others involved.

It is common, during the life of a project, to have team members experience role confusion. A RACI matrix is useful for clearly identifying roles associated with a project and improving productivity, especially when you’re suffering from role confusion. Some signs of role confusion are:

• Concern over who makes decisions —Decision-makers are usually labeled as Accountable, but it may be that decisions are being made by the Responsible party. If that’s the case, the team should know who makes decisions in each situation.
• Finger pointing —If work is not completed on time, finger pointing may result. The key to avoiding this is knowing who is Responsible. 
• Poor resource allocation —The RACI Matrix should make resource allocation very clear, but sometimes a single task can be extremely taxing, leading to some issues concerning who should be doing what and when.
• Lack of action because of ineffective communications —If someone is not Informed, they may not know to perform a task.
• Too many consultations because the wrong people are consulted —The Consulted should be clearly labeled to avoid jeopardizing the project schedule.

It is the duty of a project manager to step in if role confusion is suspected and clarify roles to ensure that everyone is aware of expectations.

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What is a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) in Project Management?

• 1.  Project Management Basics
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Introduction to Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)

Project management is a complex process that involves multiple stakeholders, tasks, and resources. To ensure the success of a project, it is crucial to assign clear roles and responsibilities to team members and accurately define their tasks. 

One tool that can help project managers achieve this goal is the Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM). In this article, we will explore the definition and benefits of RAM, as well as some examples.

If you’re looking for a RAM template that will help you assign roles and clarify responsibilities, Wrike has a customizable template ready to go.

What is a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) in project management?

A responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) in project management, also known as a RACI chart or RACI matrix, details all the necessary stakeholders and clarifies responsibilities amongst cross-functional teams and their involvement level in a project. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed and each letter corresponds to a team member.

A RAM in project management should be referred to by all parties throughout a project because it helps plan an individual’s roles and responsibilities before work begins. A RACI matrix ensures all stakeholders know who is responsible for completing a task or getting feedback on deliverables.

The four roles are broken down as follows:

• Responsible: The person(s) completing the task
• Accountable: The team member coordinating the actions, making decisions, and delegating to those responsible for the task
• Consulted: The person(s) who will be communicated with regarding decisions and tasks
• Informed: The person(s) who will be updated during the project and upon completion

Read more about RACI here . 

Identify and visualize roles seamlessly with Wrike

Responsibility assignment matrix example.

A common RAM   template looks like the example below. Notice how all stakeholders can have more than one role:

Responsibility Assignment Matrix template

Below you can see a powerful RAM template . The chart helps with visualizing roles and workload clearly. Therefore, project managers and team members follow the progress easily and stay on track.

Clarify roles with Wrike

In conclusion, RAM is a useful tool for any project manager who wants to ensure their team is clear on their responsibilities. It helps to establish a structured approach to project management, allowing for better communication, accountability, and ultimately, project success.

Using Wrike’s pre-built template, you can define the roles of each team member so everybody is on the same page. The template will also help you balance your workload and create complete transparency on your team structure.

What is a RACI Chart?

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How to Streamline Roles and Promote Team Collaboration with an Effective RACI Chart

Last Updated November 7, 2019

Imagine for a moment a homeowner’s association is tasked with a project of throwing a summer barbeque bash for the neighborhood. Everyone shows up at the same time, mills around trying to find a task and chaos ensues as homeowners arrive before food has been cooked. Now imagine that same team of people tasked with the same project, but in this team, each individual is assigned a specific task, from grilling to game planning. Now, this team can immediately get to work, and it’s much more likely the neighborhood bash will be an enjoyable event.

In any project, whether the task at hand is throwing a summer party or helping an organization with a technology transformation, when roles and responsibilities for everyone involved are clear, the project is more likely to be executed smoothly. In addition, project managers are often beholden to multiple stakeholders, and keeping those key players informed and involved throughout the lifecycle of the project is critical to project success.

What is a RACI Chart?

One method for streamlining accountability on a project is the use of a responsibility assignment matrix, specifically, a RACI chart. The RACI chart describes how the matrix assigns each task or deliverable, assigns an owner, and denotes who else is involved, ultimately classifying involved parties into four categories: responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. This approach is widespread among project managers, according to “ A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge ( PMBOK® Guide), Seventh Edition,” as it can eliminate confusion on who is in charge of, or accountable for, a specific project task.

The first step to developing an effective RACI chart is understanding what the various categories represent:

Responsible: This is the active party, the person who executes the task or completes the deliverable. This includes doing the work as well as making decisions. In some cases, a task or deliverable may have more than one responsible party; for best results, this role should be limited to as few people as possible for each task.

Accountable: This individual is responsible for ensuring the task is completed correctly and meets all specifications. While this person is not in charge of doing the work, they do delegate it and are responsible for approving the job that is completed. Like the previous category, the number of people assigned to this role should be limited for each task to ensure clarity in ownership.

Consulted: This group, typically comprising of subject matter experts, help provide supporting information for the person(s) responsible for working on the task. Communication with this group is two-way and is required before the task can be completed.

Informed: This group of people must be kept updated on the progress of the task or deliverable, as these individuals may be impacted by the outcomes. They typically are not involved in the feedback or review cycle but should be contacted after a decision or action is made.  

How RACI Charts Influence Project Outcomes

Planning is a critical component of project management and project success, and establishing roles and responsibilities is a key component of the planning stage. Implementing a RACI chart offers several advantages for project participants, including:

• Streamlined communication – All parties know precisely who to ask questions to, who to consult and who to inform.
• A controlled set of stakeholders – By pre-defining these responsibilities, project managers are less likely to be left juggling an unnecessary amount of opinions. Distinguishing consulters from informers can also help avoid a bulk amount of stakeholder feedback .
• Manages fatigue and overwhelm – Although project managers may hold many responsibilities, a RACI chart helps outline other owners, knowledgeable parties and accountable players to help lift some of the burden and ensure everyone stays informed.
• Establishes expectations up front – Creating a RACI chart can also help manage conflict later in the project lifecycle, as everyone should visually understand their roles and responsibilities on a project from the beginning.

Using a RACI Chart

RACI charts don’t have to be complex; they can be as simple as listing the work to be done, the resources assigned and the responsibility they hold. Follow these steps to create your own RACI chart:

Step 1: List the names of the people involved in the project – You’ll need to determine if roles or specific names are appropriate. For example, if a single person holds multiple roles, you could specify by role, whereas if multiple people hold similar titles, you might need to specify by name.

Step 2: Break down specific tasks or deliverables – Although this should be a breakdown of the project, it’s important to balance this to ensure the chart doesn’t become cumbersome or impossible to manage.

Step 3: Assign a role to teach task or deliverable, using RACI – Each task must have someone assigned to be responsible and someone assigned to be accountable.

Step 4: Seek buy in from the team – Gather your team, ensure everyone agrees with their assigned roles and responsibilities and allow for questions.

Step 5: Communicate with project stakeholders – Once you have team buy in, meet with stakeholders and get their buy in to establish expectations up front and avoid conflict down the road. The process of collecting buy in from the team and stakeholders is critical to achieving an effective project.

Step 6: Refer to the RACI – This step may seem obvious, but it doesn’t do any good to plan for the project and then not follow the chart as intended. Ensure everyone continues to adhere to the roles outlined in the RACI chart – remember, they approved them in the planning stage.

RACI Chart Example

Let’s go back to that neighborhood (NBHD) barbecue party and create a RACI chart for the homeowner association (HOA).

Keep in mind that RACI charts are useful in many cases but may not be needed in every case.  For example, rapid projects with small teams likely don’t need introduced complexity. Some Agile projects (depending on scope and timeline) may also have an implied role matrix as some roles are pre-defined, such as the Scrum team .

In implementing a RACI chart, a project manager should immediately set expectations for everyone involved. This includes ensuring team members understand when and what they must do, experts knowing when their opinion will be solicited, and stakeholders understanding where they will be informed, and where they will be consulted for input. Following the method can help establish a foundation for a streamlined project and pave the way to stronger relationships that can make a meaningful difference in the success of the project.

PMBOK is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Interested in expanding your project management expertise? Learn more about Villanova’s Applied Project Management Certificate program and course offerings.

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Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI Matrix) Explained

Last updated 11th April 2024

There’s an old saying that ‘If everyone’s responsible, nobody’s responsible.’ And in project management, it often rings true.

When people don’t know exactly what they – and their colleagues – are responsible for, it’s easy for things to get missed, ignored, or left for others to deal with.

This is especially true nowadays, with projects more complex – and teams more distributed – than ever.

And it’s a situation that leads to confusion, frustration, and, potentially, project failure .

One way to mitigate this is the responsibility assignment matrix – sometimes called the RACI matrix.

In this post we’ll outline the core principles of the RACI Matrix – and explain why it may be a good idea for project managers to put in place for their projects!

What is a RACI matrix?

A RACI matrix is an essential project management tool used to define roles and responsibilities for a project or project task. It’s about defining who’s responsible for projects or tasks, and what level of input is expected of them.

These are the four categories of involvement in a project, and each individual or team involved in the project is assigned one of these project roles. 

Let’s first dig into what they mean…

The Responsible category is for a person or team who is actively involved in completing a task or project. To put it crudely, they’re the ones who are actually ‘doing the work.’

The Accountable category is for the person or team who’s ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the project, task or deliverable. They might not be the ones ‘doing’ the work, but they are the ones who are ultimately accountable for the outcome. 

The Consulted category is for teams or people who need to be consulted for their expertise or input along the way. They may not be directly involved in the work, but their input is important. For example – these people might be required to give feedback and sign off, or provide technical advice.

And the Informed category is for people who need to be kept informed of progress. They may provide input on a task or project, but more likely, they just require up-to-date info to understand where things are up to.

By clearly defining roles and responsibilities for a project using a RACI matrix, it’s easier to monitor progress and ensure successful completion. 

It also helps to eliminate misunderstandings about who is responsible for what by enshrining this in a clear, visual way.

How to create a RACI matrix

Creating a RACI matrix is easy to do. The matrix consists of two main elements – a table and a list of tasks, roles and responsibilities for the project or task.

The table is made up of columns for each individual involved in the project, and rows for each task or activity that needs to be completed. Each cell in the table will indicate the role for that person in relation to that particular task. The list should include a description of each task or activity, as well as the roles and responsibilities for each individual involved.

Let’s look at a classic project and consider how those categories would come into effect using the RACI model.

In this example we’ll consider a typical, run-of-the-mill web design project. So we start by adding a column for every person or team involved – we’ll go with client, project manager, web designer, graphic designer, front-end developer, back-end developer, content writers/editors/strategists and a QA team.

Then, down the left-hand column, we list the stages or tasks involved in that project. We’ll keep things broad and go with briefing and project outline, design, look and feel, user experience, front-end user interface, back end functionality and website content

Again, this is pretty broad, but you could also make it incredibly granular, highlighting every single task and every single person – and, actually, the RACI matrix is often at its best when done in this more detailed way.

Then, to complete our RACI matrix, we need to go through each empty box in our chart and fill it out with one of our four letters to denote whether that person or team is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed.

To further illustrate the idea, let’s look at a different example – designing and executing a content marketing strategy.

In this example you’ll notice that we have some individuals marked as “A&R” – this means they’re both accountable AND responsible. In other words, they’re tasked with doing the work – AND accountable for the results – which demonstrates how, sometimes, people can occupy more than one category in the matrix.

The beauty of this model is that you can read it in a couple of different ways.

You can view it row by row and work out who has what level of responsibility for a particular task.

Or you can use the columns to work out the requirements of a person or team across a whole project. In theory, you could pick out your role, then get a clear overview of all your responsibilities by simply working your way down the list.

Your RACI Matrix x Project.co

RACI charts are a key part of the project management process – particularly for complex projects – and can be managed with project management software like Project.co . 

Start by creating your project. Every project can be customised to include the tools you need.

Next, invite your project team – this can be made up of internal team members, client team members, and even freelancers.

The Project Notes section is a great place to leave important info that’s relevant to the whole project. This is a good place to store your RACI matrix. 

You can also use the Embed tool to embed documents such as Google Sheets so they’re available from within your project to everyone involved.

You can also include important RACI chart info from within the notes section of each task, as well as attaching tasks to individual people, dates and other important info.

Simply create the tasks you need to complete for your project and assign the responsible person or people to them. 

Final thoughts

You don’t have to be a business analyst to create a RACI chart and use this powerful method to make your projects more streamlined, simple and efficient.

The bottom line is that a RACI matrix ensures every team member knows what’s expected of them – who’s accountable, who’s doing the work, who needs to be consulted, and who needs to be kept up to date.

And if you’re looking to take your project management game to the next level – sign up to Project.co today and get started for free!

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Understanding the Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI Matrix)

The Responsibility Assignment Matrix also referred to as RACI Matrix or Responsibility Accountability Matrix is a key tool an organization can use to ensure successful completion of projects. The matrix helps managers know who plays what role or performs which duties during a project.

If this isn’t clearly defined it can lead to a common problem when carrying out projects, where conflicts arise over who is to do what, some team members having more workload, understaffing of the project and so on. That is why the RACI matrix comes in handy in project management . By developing the matrix a manager can ensure everybody knows what is expected of them and team members stick to specific roles assigned to them, therefore avoiding confusion and problems in the project.

The Four Roles in RACI Matrix

RACI is an acronym for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed  the four roles team members can be assigned in a project. In the matrix, tasks are listed in the first column and project members in the top row of the table.

The Acronym RACI Stands For:

Responsible (r).

This refers to the individual who will perform a task. Each task has to have at least one person who completes it. If an R is missing in any of the matrix rows that task has not been assigned to anyone creating a gap that needs to be filled immediately. For tasks, they can be several people expected to perform it who then report to the person accountable.

Accountable (A)

This is the individual who is ultimately answerable for the decisions to be made for a task. They most likely are the project manager or a senior official who have final say over the tasks. To be efficient the number of people accountable for each task should not be many. For most projects one listed accountable person is ideal.

Consulted (C)

This is the go-to person for advice on the project.  They should be an expert on matters relating to the project whose opinion is sort before making final decisions or taking certain action. For example, if you are working on technical tasks consultations with the IT administrator for expert advice will be necessary. The number of consultants per task, however, should be minimum. Too many C’s may prolong a task because of a lot of unnecessary deliberations and they might be a risk of poor plan execution.

Informed (I)

These are people in the team who have to be updated on the project progress or decisions. These individuals are in most cases informed once a task is completed and then take the necessary next step i.e. to mark that project as done, once update. Communication with the informed is usually one-way and they don’t contribute directly to the task.

Creating a RACI Matrix (Step-By-Step)

• Identify all project tasks and activities and put this on the left-hand side of the matrix according to how they will be completed.
• Identify all the individuals and groups involved in the project and list them at the top of the chart.
• Figure out who does what-This is a very crucial part of the formation of the matrix. Here the project manager identifies the people to be assigned to each task. While doing this ensure you match skill sets to tasks.
• Develop the matrix- At this stage, you assign team members their association . They will either be Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed for each task. Best practice dictates that you start with the “R’s”- because they are the people performing the tasks necessary to complete the project. Then move on to the “A’s” who are ultimately answerable for the process. Finally, assign the “C’s” and ‘I’s” individuals who have no direct responsibility in the project but are needed for it to succeed.
• Share and discuss the RACI Matrix- when done constructing the matrix send it out to the team members involved and ask for feedback. From their feedback make any necessary changes. By doing this you will be ensuring you haven’t left anything important out and all involved are clear about what is required of them. The final matrix should be one that all stakeholders agree on before starting work on the process.

RACI Example

A company is working on developing an App that will boost its online sales. David is developing this App that will run on software developed by Mark. Simon is overseeing the project as manager and Irene is in marketing. David has the task of coming up with the App so in the matrix, he is the Responsible person. Simon is Accountable and Mark needs to be consulted because his software will run the App. Finally, Irene needs to be informed when the App is ready so that she can take the next step and promote it.

Questions to Ask Before Finalizing Your RACI Matrix

To be certain assignments are reasonable to ask these questions

• Are too many responsibilities given to one person? If so should they be given to someone else?
• Does every task have an appropriate number of consulted and informed?
• Does every role have a responsible and accountable person?
• In the case of complex tasks can smooth decision making be done by one accountable person or should there be more than one to ease decision making?

Once you answer these questions positively you can begin working with your matrix. That, however, doesn’t mean that the matrix should remain the same to the conclusion of the project. You have to constantly re-evaluate it and make changes when the need arises due to work changes over time.

Variations of RACI Matrix

They are other Responsibility Assignment models that add on to this matrix. Examples include :

RASIC – This has the RACI Matrix associations Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed but adds a 5 th association which is Supportive. These are individuals tasked with assisting the responsible party to perform the task.

RACIO – Also has a Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed person but also includes Omitted. This is employees not involved in a task. This helps give clarity and ownership of roles.

RACI-VS – Here two more associations are also included. The two are “Verify” and “Sign off”. Verify, this means reviewing a task at the end to ensure it has been done and completed properly. Sign Off mostly happens at the very end and gives a seal of approval that a task has concluded successfully. These two steps should not be done for all project tasks, it should only be for tasks that absolutely require it.

As a project manager having a RACI Matrix will make you confident that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined for the team. Every task has a person doing it and duplication of work is unlikely to happen.

One of the best things the RACI Matrix helps get rid of is the passing of blame amongst team members because if work is not done it is very clear where the buck stops and who is letting the others down. The RACI Matrix is a good project management tool but it should be noted that it cannot address issues such as poor teamwork or low morale among employees for that you would have to figure out how to motivate the group, maybe by giving rewards for a successful project.

About Sonia Kukreja

I am a mother of a lovely kid, and an avid fan technology, computing and management related topics. I hold a degree in MBA from well known management college in India. After completing my post graduation I thought to start a website where I can share management related concepts with rest of the people.

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The ultimate guide to RACI charts

How often do you take the time to set out the roles and responsibilities with a project team before you start?

You may feel like you have a crack team working alongside you and you can jump right in, but there’s more to a successful project than talent alone. In a recent Project Management Institute survey, 31%  of respondents said that poor upfront planning played a part in a project’s failure.

So defining obligations for all stakeholders before you begin a project could make the difference, and one option available is to draw up a RACI chart. A RACI chart is a project management tool used to allocate roles and responsibilities for all the tasks and activities that collectively make up your project.

This article aims to tell you all you need to know about RACI charts ― what they are, the good, the bad, and how you can use monday.com to create a winning one.

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What does the acronym RACI mean?

RACI is an acronym for a responsibility assignment matrix, the letters stand for—

• Responsible
• Accountable

The RACI matrix uses these terms to describe individuals’ roles and responsibilities for project activities and deliverables.

Once your responsibility assignment is complete, all participants should understand precisely what they need to do to make the project successful.

Definitions of RACI terms

Here’s how the RACI chart framework envisions each role and responsibility.

Responsible: the person assigned as Responsible is the individual who does the work required to complete the task.

Accountable: this role is given to the person who will be accountable if the work is incomplete or not up-to-scratch. They are the individual who signs off that the job is done to the standard required.

Consulted: sometimes, work may require advice or other input from a subject matter expert to get the job done. Allocate the Consulted role to a person who’s advice for task completion is necessary.

Informed: the Informed role is for those stakeholders who need keeping in the loop as a task progresses. They won’t provide any input on how the task gets done, but are likely a key stakeholder who needs to know what’s happening.

How do you create a RACI Chart?

You can create a RACI chart using a simple grid, but it’s better to use a digital workspace so you can easily update and amend it.

monday.com has a RACI chart template  you can use to get a head start.

On the left of the RACI diagram, split your project into logical phases, and note down all of the action items that require completion. Along the top of the matrix, the four project roles of the RACI model are already entered for you.

Next, where a task and role intersects, add in the person who will assume the role. Here’s an example containing a few common tasks for a new product launch:

There are a few rules you need to stick to when you compose your RACI chart.

To make sure a task gets done, each one should have someone allocated as Responsible. Similarly, it’s best practice for every work item to have someone Accountable, too, so they can sign off the task when it’s finished.

For large tasks you can assign more than one person to each of the roles, if needed. Or if it makes sense, you can have the same person allocated to a deliverable as both Responsible and Accountable. As you can see in the above example, not all tasks require a Consulted or Informed person ― you don’t have to assign these roles if you don’t need them.

Now let’s move on to understand the benefits of using a RACI diagram to define roles for a project.

What are the benefits of a RACI chart?

A recent study concluded that role conflict and worker burnout were 2 significant factors in employee turnover. And as anyone who’s had the experience of inducting new workers to an existing project can tell you ― it’s much better to keep the same team around you through to project completion.

A RACI chart can help you manage both role conflict and worker burnout. When you define the workplace accountabilities from the get-go, all of your team should understand what they and everyone else is doing. A written point of reference should, in theory, reduce the conflict and politics around roles. The RACI matrix can also help highlight any team members overloaded with responsibility, helping project managers mitigate team member burnout.

Additionally, understanding the spread of the workload can help you prevent a single point of failure in a complex project.

You don’t want to risk project delays because a sole worker has too much to do, and others are waiting on them before they can move forward with their work.

A further benefit of the RACI chart is its flexibility ― you can apply it to many situations. Project leaders can map out the roles and responsibilities for an entire project, or sub-team leaders can use one to define the roles for a cluster of tasks in a project.

Also, if you’re responsible for a portfolio of projects, you can assign high-level roles and responsibilities at the project level.

When should you use a RACI chart?

A RACI chart isn’t essential for every project you work on.  Well established small teams instinctively understand roles and responsibilities.

Small teams move faster  and can play to individual strengths, so a RACI matrix in this situation may throttle performance.

The RACI matrix is best for complex projects involving several company departments, or even when external companies are working alongside you on the same initiative.

The best time to compose your RACI chart is at the start of a new project. Beginning the whole project with RACI gets everyone on the same page and lays the groundwork for smoother progression. But, if your project is already underway, you can use a RACI chart to rescue a failing project.

Situations arise where one interpretation of a person’s role differs from others. So, hitting the reset button for all roles and responsibilities and formalizing it can help to iron out misconceptions.

What problems can arise with RACI charts?

Of course, nothing is perfect, and you may find a few teething troubles when you start using a RACI chart for your next project.  Team members unfamiliar with the model can find some of the definitions cause role confusion. At first glance, the difference between Accountable and Responsible isn’t immediately clear and requires further explanation.  Understandably, the Responsible person may feel that they’re entirely responsible  for a task, despite the Accountable role.

You may also experience a little tension between those who are a Consulted stakeholder and those who are only an Informed one. In this situation, it’s best to explain that the Informed role is a one-way street, designed for project efficiency ― its purpose is to keep people updated out of courtesy.

If you experience some tension over the Consulted and Informed role allocation, you can explain that it can delay task completion if too many stakeholders have a consulting role.  And you want to hit your deadlines, right? Similarly, try to avoid the pitfall of allocating several people to be Responsible or Accountable for a project task.

Doing so lays the groundwork for potential roadblocks, as tasks need processing by multiple people, causing inevitable delay. When you write the names of your tasks on the RACI chart, try and use task names that are unambiguous and inspire action. A task called ‘evaluate timesheets for inefficiency’ tells you more about the job to do than merely ‘process timesheets.’

Using clear language will make the RACI chart easier to understand for all stakeholders. If you can get all stakeholders to sign off on the assigned roles and responsibilities before your project starts, it should cut down any chart reworking when the project is up and running too.

What are the alternatives to the RACI chart?

As the RACI chart is a simple project plan at its heart, it’s flexible enough for you to optimize it to fit your particular need. Especially when you’re using a fully customizable template like the one from monday.com.

There are many variants of the RACI matrix that have tried to address the ambiguities with role names, or added in new roles entirely. Here are a few alternatives you could use instead.

The DACI chart uses the following role definitions to reduce the confusion caused by Responsible and Accountable in RACI.

Driver:  the person who ‘drives’ the task forward (Responsible in RACI).

Approver: the person who signs off the task (Accountable in RACI).

Contributor: the Consulted role in RACI

Informed:  same as RACI

The RASCI chart uses the RACI format but adds in the additional role of Support.

This role is a person who assists the Responsible person in completing an allocated task. They won’t provide advice like the Consulted role or be the main driver for task completion.

The CARS model attempts to define the roles of RACI in a more precise manner and adds in a supporting role like the RASCI model.

Communicate: combines the Consulted and Informed roles in RACI.

Approve:  uses more explicit language for the Accountable role in RACI.

Responsible: same as RACI role.

Support: uses the same support role as the RASCI model.

The CAIRO model expands RACI by adding in the letter O (and jumbles up the letters).

The letter O is for Out-of-the-loop and is for situations where you need to designate an individual or team as not involved in a task at all.

Why you should implement your RACI chart using monday.com

You can set up a RACI chart using a simple spreadsheet, but it’s much better to create one using monday.com.  Here’s why:

monday.com has a RACI chart template  for you to get up and running with your RACI chart quickly.

As you can see, the RACI roles are already entered for you, though if you prefer to use a similar model like DACI or CARS, you can easily amend the column headers with a few mouse clicks.

You can detail all the deliverables for your project on the left of the matrix and group them up into appropriate phases. Then add in your team members into the relevant role against each deliverable.

Not only is it quick to set up a RACI chart on monday.com, once you have it, there are also further benefits ― you can use all the great organization and collaboration features of monday.com to put your RACI chart to work.

• Sort and filter your RACI chart by column, role, task, or person.
• Quickly set new tasks or automate repetitive ones.
• When priorities shift or personnel change, you can reflect the changes with a few swift edits.
• Easily shareable to all stakeholders, even external ones with a sharable link .
• Tag people, create notifications and leave comments and other alerts ― all without leaving the board.

Using monday.com, you can turbo-charge your RACI chart and make it a powerful project management planning tool .

Take control of your projects with monday.com

Poor upfront planning of your next project could result in problems. Multiple team members might independently work on the same task, wasting resources. Other well-meaning stakeholders can insert themselves into a deliverable, even if their input isn’t needed.

You can mitigate these problems and others by defining stakeholder roles and responsibilities upfront with a RACI chart.  The RACI chart sets out what each team member should do every step of the way. If you use monday.com to formulate your RACI chart, you can take advantage of all the extra features in monday.com to make your RACI chart a powerful project management resource.

Make a start on your first RACI chart using monday.com by heading over to our practical template .

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RACI: how a Responsibility Matrix can help you Manage your Projects

Table of contents, what is the role and responsibility of the matrix, how to use the raci matrix, why is a responsibility matrix important, an example of a raci matrix, raci matrix template: example to download, #1. create a list of project tasks, #2. identify the project participants and assign the roles, #3. designate an agent and a manager for each task or activity, #4. make sure that there is only one person per task, #5. talk to all agents, managers, and stakeholders, #6. use it throughout the duration of the project, our best tips on the raci matrix.

To meet the various challenges of project management, the responsibility matrix , also called the RACI chart , is proving to be an indispensable governance tool for companies.

The success of your projects depends on good project management and a clear vision of the responsibilities of the people assigned . Each manager, and especially the project manager , should define an overview of the roles in order to optimize the distribution of tasks to the team members and avoid wasting time.

How to implement it and effectively extend its possibilities in an agile model?

The responsibility matrix: definition and management principles

This method is an organizational design tool that maps activities and defines the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders by:

• visually synthesizing " who does what ",
• setting the perimeter of the project,
• defining the field of action in order to structure it.

What does RACI stand for?

• Responsible,
• Accountable,

This organizational matrix is used in the form of a resource allocation table , which indicates the distribution of functions and responsibilities among the different actors in a project using the letters R, A, C, and I:

• the "R" for the director or the person in charge of the action ensuring the smooth running of the work;
• the "A" for the actor who assumes, approves, and possibly carries out the action if it is affixed the two letters R and A;
• the "C" for the subject matter experts to be consulted for their opinion;
• the "I" for the agents who will be informed of the progress of the actions without necessarily acting directly.

💡In some specific cases, the letters V and S can be added to the RACI model, each designating respectively:

• the validator , for certain quality validations,
• the support , person, or authority that can intervene in support.

This method avoids any project governance problems , such as role redundancy and dilution of responsibilities. It enables a correct and thorough completion of the project .

All the tasks and their assignments are identified, as well as the need for intervention and information at each stage of the process for good steering of the objectives.

This overall vision also allows:

• to ensure a follow-up of the deliverables ,
• to avoid any oblivion or dispersion,
• to easily set up a reminder system that is indispensable in team management.

Before seeing in detail how to build and fill out a RACI table, we invite you to download our RACI matrix template so that you can fill it out:

Excel Model for RACI matrix

How to build a RACI matrix in 6 steps?

To build a RACI matrix , it is, therefore, necessary to list:

• inlines, the different tasks and activities attached to the project;
• and in columns, all the individual actors or multiple entities.

At each intersection of the tool, one or more letters of the RACI system are then assigned, each designating a specific role.

Think about who is involved. This underscores the first decision in creating a RACI: do you list roles or specific people? As a general rule, you should put the functional positions at the top of the list.

Work breakdown structure is very important. Review the project and divide it into clear tasks and deliverables. Record them in the left-hand column of your diagram. It doesn't have to be 100% order, but you should let participants clarify the order of tasks . This has two advantages:

• First, by establishing order, you will identify missing (or redundant) activities . Participants will notice if something was left out or if two activities may have meant the same thing.
• Second, this will initiate discussion around interfaces and collaboration . I.e., the process participants exchange ideas in the sense of "I do this and need you to do this but...".

At the end of this phase, the order of the tasks in the process is correct, the list is complete and without redundancies.

To make it easier, ask yourself the following questions:

• Who does it (Responsible)?
• Who is responsible for the proper execution or controls the result (Accountable)?
• Who supports the role of the executor with advice and action (Consulted)?
• Who is informed by the executor (Informed)?

Each task or deliverable should have one person responsible and one person in charge.

Make sure there is only one role or name assigned to the responsible person - this is really important. Think carefully about who should be consulted while the task is in progress and who should be informed when the task is complete.

Make sure that everyone understands their tasks and roles!

This is important - align all the assumptions you have made with your team, don't do it alone. Get the community together! If you haven't gone over roles with your project team , have a quick chat about how you set up the RACI. Make sure everyone is comfortable with their roles and responsibilities in the project.

One of the most important things is to agree on the RACI matrix that you have created with project stakeholders before starting.

When you implement a task or deliverable, refer back to the RACI and make sure you know who is responsible for what .

Make sure that what was established at the beginning of a project, the roles, and responsibilities towards tasks, are still correct. A good way to do this is to provide a version online , using Google Docs or a project management tool like monday.com .

• Traditional Project Management: Are Agile Methods Any Better?
• What is Stakeholder Mapping? Definition, Guide, Tools & Matrix
• Portfolio Management Process: Manage your Projects Strategically!
• There should be exactly one person responsible (R) in each row. If more than one person is responsible, much of the clear assignment of responsibility is lost. If no one is responsible - then it is even worse.
• If more than one responsible person (R) has been assigned per row, after all, you should think about splitting the task.
• If a column (role) has too many A's and R's, it is a potential bottleneck. Here it should be checked if there is too much responsibility on this role.
• If a role contains hardly any assignments, you can think about whether it needs to be included at all.

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The RACI matrix: Your blueprint for project success

A raci matrix is a simple, effective means for defining project roles and responsibilities, providing a comprehensive chart of who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed every step of the way..

Having managed and rescued dozens of projects, and helped others do so, I’ve noted that there is always one critical success factor (CSF) that has either been effectively addressed or missed/messed up: clarity around the roles and responsibilities for each project participant and key stakeholder. No matter how detailed and complete a project plan may be for any project, confusion or omission of participant roles and responsibilities will cause major problems.

Enter the RACI matrix. The simplest and most effective approach I’ve seen and used to define and document project roles and responsibilities is the RACI model. Integrating the RACI model into an organization’s project life cycle (PLC) creates a powerful synergy that enhances and improves project outcomes.

What is a RACI matrix?

The RACI matrix is a project role and responsibility 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 my project 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.

[ Learn why IT projects still fail at an alarming rate, beware the 12 project management myths to avoid , and find out how to pick the right project management methodology for your team . | Get the latest project management advice by signing up for our CIO newsletters . ]

RACI matrix roles

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:

• 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 example below.)
• Identify all the project stakeholders and list them along the top of the chart.
• Complete the cells of the model identifying who has responsibility, accountability and who will be consulted and informed for each task.
• Ensure every task has at least one stakeholder Responsible for it.
• No tasks should have more than one stakeholder Accountable . Resolve any conflicts where there is more than one for a particular task.
• Share, discuss and agree the RACI model with your stakeholders at the start of the project. This includes resolving any conflicts or ambiguities.

RACI matrix example

For purposes of simplification, let’s say your project can be broken down into four discrete tasks, undertaken by a team of application developers, along with a sponsoring project executive, project manager , business analyst , and technical architect.

Step 1 of the process involves mapping out the project as a whole. For this, the project manager is both accountable and responsible for the work at hand. To determine the scope and deliverables of the project , the project manager consults with the project’s executive sponsor and with the business analyst about the process to be overhauled as part of the project. The technical architect and the application developers are subsequently informed of the project plan.

In Step 2, the business analyst must then delve more deeply into the process to help map out each facet of the business process to be overhauled. The business analyst is thus responsible for the task, with the project executive being accountable for signing off on this work. To better understand the technical underpinnings of the current process, the business analyst will consult with the technical architect. The project manager and application developers will then be informed of the conclusions derived from this portion of the project.

Here is an illustration of a simplified RACI model for this example project, taking these first two steps into account:

The subsequent third and fourth tasks involve shaping the new process, again with the business analyst responsible for this work, and the other roles on the team following their same responsibilities when the old process was being analyzed in Step 2. Step 4 sees the technical architect taking over, devising a new architecture that will support the new process, signed off by the executive sponsor, and held accountable by the project manager, who devised the scope and deliverables in Step 1.

RACI matrix template

Templates are available for free on the web for those looking to get started with the RACI model. These are typically geared toward Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, but can also be available for more specialized software. Here are several popular possibilities:

• Vertex 42 Excel RACI templates
• Projectmanager.com Excel RACI templates
• Smartsheet Excel RACI templates
• ClickUp RACI templates
• Excel Downloads RACI templates

RACI vs. RASCI

RASCI is another type of responsibility assignment matrix used in project management. It retains the four core roles of RACI — Responsible , Accountable , Consulted , and Informed — but adds a fifth: Supportive . The Supportive role in a RASCI chart is responsible for providing assistance to those in the Responsible role. This may involve providing additional resources, expertise, or advice to help the Responsible party complete a particular task. Organizations that choose RASCI often do so to ensure that personnel who may not have direct responsibility or accountability but are nevertheless vital to the success of an activity or project are considered a notable facet (and cost) of the project. Individuals or entities that consult on a particular phase of a project, whether internal or external to the organization, provide an example of Supportive resources.

RACI matrix rules and best practices

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

When building out your RACI matrix, the following three rules should be applied:

• Every task must have at least one Responsible party.
• To ensure clear decision-making, each task should have only one Accountable person.
• Every team member should have a role on each task, even if it is just to be Informed.

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.

More on project management:

• Project management guide: Tips, strategies, best practices
• What is a project manager? The lead role for project success
• 5 early warning signs of project failure
• 12 project management myths to avoid
• 16 tips for a smooth switch to agile project management

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With more than 25 years of corporate leadership experience and 6 years of executive coaching expertise, Bob Kantor is the founder of Kantor Consulting Group . Through his company's executive coaching and leadership development programs, Bob supports IT and STEM professionals transitioning from managing technology to leading people with innovation and confidence.

It’s rare for technology-driven organizations today to be limited by or constrained in what they can accomplish based on their technology skills. Rather, it’s the soft skills of those in leadership positions that typically create bottlenecks, miscommunication, re-work and ultimately, projects that are over budget and behind schedule. These are all areas where Bob’s programs enable clients to gain traction and get things turned around.

Bob has experience in leadership coaching for over 150 IT executives and managers at Bloomberg, and over 60 senior IT leaders at companies like DISH Network, Chevron, PayPal, eBay, Toyota, Aetna, Sysco, Unilever, SunTrust Bank, The Walt Disney Company and Molina Health Care.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of Bob Kantor and do not necessarily represent those of IDG Communications, Inc., its parent, subsidiary or affiliated companies.

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