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I would like to learn everything about the following business process: RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted & Informed)
The RACI (Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed) model is known to be a straightforward managerial tool used mainly to identify roles, identify responsibilities, reduce misunderstandings among team members, improve communication, and avoid confusion over the roles and responsibilities during a project or organizational change process. This system is supported by an RACI chart that helps the team to work out a method, agree, and assign roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities.
DESCRIPTION
RACI is an abbreviation for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, & Informed. Each of the four types of ‘association’ connects a role to a task that can be represented in the form of a matrix called RACI matrix. This RACI matrix, also known as the responsibility assignment matrix (RAM), is created to assign tasks, responsibilities, activities, takes care of accountability, helps with decision-making, provides support to the members of the project team/process team, and clearly explains the expectations on the degree of each member’s participation.
• Responsible (R) — This is in regard to the person who does the work to complete the task. This person has the responsibility of getting the work done or arriving at a certain decision. Most commonly, this applies to just one person, for example, an application developer, technical writer, technical architect, and a business analyst.
• Accountable (A) — This is in regard to the person who is ‘accountable’ for accurately and thoroughly completing the task. This role enables the person to approve the work that is completed and is wholly accountable for it. As a rule, there must be only one person with this role, for example, a project sponsor or a project executive.
• Consulted (C) — This is in regard to the people who deliver information required for the project. Typically, there is a two-way communication between the ‘Responsible’ and ‘Consulted’. There are usually many people under this aspect, for example, subject matter experts (SME). The number of people assigned under ‘Consulted’ should be considered careful, for too many people can extend the time of tasks and can cause a decline in quality.
• Informed (I) — This group of people should always be informed of the progress and quality of the project and are kept up to date on every decision and action taken. Assigning this role enables clarity in the dependencies and ensures transparency of the status of tasks. It can be complex to identify selected people who need status updates since there are various roles that might require them. For example, sales managers would require status updates to know if their customers have certain interests in the development of product features.
There are a number of benefits in using the RACI model in an organization. Some benefits include engagement of employees, assisting with employee training, reducing frustration with the management team, saves time, and aligns well with organizational strategy.
HISTORY OF RACI IN BUSINESS
The RACI matrix was originally called Linear Responsibility Charting (LRC), which was perceived by Ernst Hijams, a Dutch consultant, and was later developed by a Canadian consulting firm Leethan, Simpson, Ltd in the 1950s. According to the Enterprise Architecture Foundations II, the model underwent various adaptions, one of which was the Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) during the early 1970s. In the early 1980s a similar structure was seen in the Goal Directed Project Management (GDPM).
PRACTICES and ROLES OF THE PROCESS
The following are the indicators of when an RACI matrix (RAM) can be implemented as an all-purpose practice of project management.
• When the approval process is heavily pending due to role confusion, an RACI matrix can sort the confusion by clarifying roles.
• When decisions are often ignored by various roles and are considered arbitrary, an RACI matrix can fix this problem by assigning and illustrating roles.
• A situation that commonly occurs is when multiple people are working on the same task, leading to a delay in the task’s completion. It can be because these people are not aware of who in particular should be completing the task. This is another aspect that can be solved by using RACI matrix.
• There are also times when the authority to accomplish tasks is not known. This can be solved by utilizing the RACI matrix to explicitly define the tasks, roles, responsibilities, and most importantly — authority.
In order to create an RACI matrix and to work on the various roles of the process, the following steps are utilized,
• The first step is to identify all the tasks that are involved in the project and arrange them on the left side of the matrix chart in the order in which they must be completed.
• The second step is to identify all the roles of the project, listing them on the top of the chart.
• The third step is to fill in the cells of the matrix by identifying the person/people as responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed, for every task. At the initial level of the project, the identification is usually kept simple by entering the person’s name. However, at later stages, the cells are made more detailed with information on the person’s work, status and progress.
• The fourth step is to make sure that each task is assigned a role responsible and a role accountable.
• The final step is to agree upon the RACI matrix constructed with the project stakeholders before starting.
Some examples of teams utilizing the RACI matrix are scrum teams, enterprise architecture teams, general project management and execution teams, software project management teams, IT service management teams and cloud environments.
CURRENT TRENDS
With the explosion of big data, numerous companies are utilizing RACI matrices to keep the networks for process and project management simple. However, these networks are evolving into platforms for agility and inclusion. These RACI networks can be tapped as needed by responsible and accountable managers for a specific response. Companies are also utilizing RACI to help with re-framing decision rights along with the traditional focus on design and development tasks.
Organizations are integrating their RACI model with various other tools in order to enable a more detailed and result-oriented outcome. Integrating the RACI model with the company’s project life cycle (PLC) would create an influential interaction, thereby, enhancing the performance of tasks.
CONCLUSION
To sum up, the RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, & Informed) model is a managerial tool that helps organizations to identify roles and tasks, evenly distribute roles and tasks, assign responsibilities, and enables for successful completion of a project. Throughout the process of the project, all those involved are kept in the loop.