Why Your Team Needs an RACI Matrix

Without defined roles and responsibilities, people may be unclear as to their function and expectations when interacting with others within a procedure or workflow. Often there is confusion. Who is supposed to do what? How should people be working together? Where and when do I contribute?

But when roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, good results usually follow. People tend to perform better — and results are better — when everyone understands their role and what is expected from each role contributing to a procedure, project or workflow.

Introducing the RACI Matrix

A RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) Matrix is a way to identify the participants and the activities or steps involved in completing a procedure, project or workflow.

It’s usually defined in the form of a table. Each of the steps or activities of the procedure are listed row by row within the first column of the table. The roles involved with completing the steps or activities within the workflow are listed column by column in the first row.  Expectations are defined in the cell where each activity (row) intersects with a role (column), using the letters R, A, C and I. Depending on the activity, there may be roles that aren’t involved in that specific activity, so the cell representing that role (or roles) may be blank.

The letters (R,A,C,I) represent the expectations of each role for the activity.

• “R” represents a “responsible” role. For example, this could be a technician, a process practitioner or a software engineer.
• “A” represents the “accountable” role. This is the person who is answerable for the results and quality of the activity; they “own” the work product. This could be a process owner, a project manager or a senior manager.
• “C” represents the “consulted” role. These are people who provide input, insights or opinions about an activity.
• “I” represents the “informed” role.” They receive updates or the outputs of an activity and could be product consumers, clients or affected teams or stakeholders.

How to use the RACI Matrix

There are two general rules for using a RACI Matrix:

• First rule: Each activity can have as many “R,” “C” or “I” expectations defined as required to meet the objectives of the specific activity. Some roles may not be involved in a particular activity (meaning the cell is left blank), while other roles may have a combination of one, two or all three expectations (R,C,I) defined for an activity.
• Second rule: For each activity, there can be only one “A.” Having more than one “A” for an activity results in ambiguity, unclear ownership and poor decision making.

While not a fixed rule, how the “consulted” role is defined with a RACI matrix can provide interesting insights into a procedure or process.

• Are there “too many” C’s? When a RACI matrix has a lot of C’s identified for many of the activities, this may be indicative of the lack of a defined process, a lack of confidence in the process or procedure or that the process or procedure is not delivering the desired results.
• Are there “very few” C’s? Conversely, a RACI matrix with few C’s identified for activities may mean that the procedure or procedure contains siloed activities or a lack of collaboration. This situation could also indicate a bottleneck (e.g., the same role is consulted with each activity) or may raise concerns about the necessity of the activity.

4 Bonus RACI Matrix Tips

Here are some tips for defining and maintaining RACI Matrixes.

• Before defining an RACI Matrix, map the workflow and ensure that all activities are identified.
• Ensure that every activity or task has at least one "responsible" role.
• Define the roles, not the people. People assume the roles needed to accomplish the desired results of a particular activity. Depending on the organization or the specific procedure, some people may assume multiple roles.
• Review and agree the RACI Matrix with involved stakeholders on a regular and periodic basis. As part of those reviews, remap the workflows to ensure any changes to activities are captured and represented in the RACI Matrix.