COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
The RACI Matrix in the project management is the most prevalent tool used by the project stakeholder across industry. It explains roles and responsibility of each stakeholder and their decision making power.
The RACI chart ensure the Business Analyst communicate the with right decision makers and inform and consult to the right stakeholders throughout the Software development like cycle, to avoid any last minute change request form strong and assertive stakeholders.
The RACI Chart is also type of responsibility Assignment Matrix; it is like a table that list all the stakeholder of the project and involvement in each task, denoted by R – responsible , A – accountable, C- consulted, and I – Informed Stakeholder.
Once the stakeholder are defined in the RACI chart assignment to the roles begins.
Responsible Stakeholder means – they are stakeholder who are directly responsible for the development and the execution on the project and SDLC. They are engaged in each phase of SDLC to check whether each project requirement is well understood and executed. They are also responsible for timely delivery of the project.
They are usually product owner, designers, developers and testers of the project
Accountable stakeholder means – who review each phase of the project and accountable for the responsible stakeholders to meet the project scope, expectation and deadline
They are usually the Project managers and Business stakeholders.
Consulted stakeholder means – consulted stakeholder means one who should be consulted at each phase of SDLC as the outcome of the project development may impact the consulted stakeholder’s plan of action or their current or future work.
But every development may not need consultation as too many inputs sometime may not match the final outcome of the development.
They are usually SMEs and domain experts, who understand business requirement.
Informed Stakeholders are the stakeholders who need not be looped in everyday task and meeting but needs to be informed about the project progress. May not interfere in the decision of the development task but must be informed the project progress as it may affect them in one way or the other.
They are usually business sponsor, directors of other related projects, senior management.
Different Stakeholders on the vendor side –
- Project Managers
- Business and System Analysts
- Developers and Architects
- Database designers
- GUI designers
- Technical writers
- Testers and Quality Assurance staff
- Installation and Operations personnel
Different Stakeholders on the customer side
- Customer representatives (i.e., “Business”)
- Project sponsors
- End users (from the customer company)
- Installation and Operations personnel
External stakeholders may be:
- End users who are not a part of the customer’s organization
- Other organizations (e.g., regulatory entities)
Positive and Negative impact of RACI
Positive –
1. RACI Matrix help in clear communication will all stakeholders.
2. Avoid including everyone in every task. Only needed stakeholders are invited at respective stages.
3. It helps all stakeholders to be ready for their part of effort.
Negative –
1. In case of small or simple project, time taken to create this chart may consider to be wasted.
2. In case of big or complex project roles of the stakeholder may not be justified on RACI chart.
3. It stands irrelevant if business owner doesn’t approve this approach.
