COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
What is RACI Matrix:
RACI is abbreviation of,
R – Responsible
A – Accountable
C – Consulted
I –Informed
.
RACI matrix is a responsibility assignment chart which helps to track the project progress in each phase of the project. RACI chart helps management and ensure that everyone in the project understands their role, responsibility and task.
The RACI chart identify who is responsible and accountable for a particular project and guid us who should be consulted before making any decision and who must be informed of the project and goals.
Responsible:
It makes sure responsibility of someone who track the completion of task. For any project generally a responsible person ban be one or can be more than one person depends on project requirement.
Accountable:
An accountable person delegates the work, giving approvals whenever required and mostly will be in leadership position. A responsible person can act as a accountable.
Consulted:
Consulted persons are affected by the project solution and they provide their inputs and feedbacks to improve the proposed solution. The consulting persons can be a individual from the same team or different related team.
Informed:
In any projects some persons will not involve throughout the process but they need to be informed about project changes, progress of the project and deliverables. They are not decision makers, but they will be in loop for every step of the project.
When to use RACI Matrix:
RACI matrix can be used in the following situations
Ø Whenever task is involved interdependency and multiple teams are involved to create a solution
Ø Whenever teams are not clear about particular task and ownership
Ø To avoid uneven distribution of project tasks
RACI Matrix Rule:
RACI chart require few basic rule in order to give better efficiency and team performance
Ø For a particular task, assign one responsible person
Ø Assign one accountable person for every task
Ø Do not impose all task to single person
Ø Try to involve participation from each team member for each task
Ø Make sure all project progress are updated to the consulted and informed persons
How to create a RACI Chart:
Ø Identify all task involved in the project and place them on the left side
Ø Identify all the project stakeholders and place them top of the chart
Ø Mark each cell with the correct option like who is responsible for the project , who is accountable for the project , who can be consulted for the project and who can be informed for the project.
Ø Make sure each task has one responsible person
Ø By any situation, there should not be more than one accountable person for any task
Ø Once RACI chart is prepared, send to stakeholders at the beginning of the project and get it approved.
RACI Matrix Uses:
- It helps to avoid overburdening any individual in a project
- It helps to have open communication with employees and stakeholders
- It helps to get concise information based on project requirements
- It helps to understand future impact on work
RACI matrix will take certain amount of time to create but it will be very useful and becomes mandatory for every project
RACI matrix will become useless when members of the project do not follow it or do not use it for reference
