Method

RACI matrix

In French: RACI — matrice des responsabilités

RACI is a table that assigns, for each activity, four distinct roles: who does the work, who answers for the result, who is consulted before, who is informed after.

The four roles

R — Responsible. The person who does the work. Several people can share this role on the same activity.

A — Accountable, or approver. The person who answers for the result and who decides. It is the most important role in the grid, and the only one that must be unique: two approvers on the same line means an arbitration that goes up the line at every disagreement.

C — Consulted. The person whose opinion is gathered before the decision, in a two-way exchange. Consultation has a cost in lead time: reserve it for those whose opinion can really change the decision.

I — Informed. The person who is told afterwards, with no answer expected. It is the most widely distributed and the least costly role — and the one most often confused with consultation.

What it is really for

The point of a responsibility matrix is not the finished table: it is the conversation that has to be held to fill it in. The disagreements appear at the moment of naming the approver of an activity, and they were already there, silent, before anything was written.

It proves useful above all at the boundaries — between two departments, between a project and a line of management, between a client and a contractor. Inside a small team, it brings little: everyone already knows who does what, and formalising costs more than it yields.

It is reread at two moments: at the start of a project, and every time a decision has dragged on for lack of knowing who should decide. That second case is the best trigger, because it points precisely to the line to correct.

How to build it

The activities or decisions are listed in rows — not the people, and not the main phases — then the roles or functions in columns, never proper names. A matrix written with names becomes wrong at the first departure, whereas a matrix written with functions survives staff movements.

Each row must carry exactly one A. A row with no approver describes an activity nobody takes on; a row with two approvers describes a conflict that will wake up at the first serious disagreement.

Reading by columns is as instructive as reading by rows. A column saturated with As points to a decision bottleneck that will become the limiting factor of the project; a column containing only Is points to someone who was put down out of politeness and who will drop out.

The common mistakes

Putting two As on the same row to spare two managers. It is the flaw that empties the grid of its point: the disagreement has been written down instead of settled, and it will resurface at the worst moment.

Consulting everyone. Every C added lengthens the decision time and dilutes responsibility; beyond three or four, consultation becomes a formality nobody takes seriously any more.

Building the matrix in a meeting room without those who do the work, then circulating it. It will describe the dreamed-of organisation chart, not the real workings, and nobody will refer to it.

On the shop floor — Pharmaceutical industry

On a change of packaging supplier, approval had taken eleven weeks. The matrix built afterwards showed that four functions regarded themselves as approvers, each waiting for the others to pronounce first. None was blocking deliberately: the table did not exist, so each assumed it was the last resort.

The other tools illustrated by this trade: healthcare and life sciences.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between the R and the A in a RACI matrix?

The R does the work, the A answers for it. They are often held by different people: a technician carries out a modification, a production manager takes on its consequence. When both sit with the same person, it must still be written down, because the next row may not group them together.

Can there be several As on the same activity?

No, and it is the only strict rule of the grid. A single approver per row is what allows a decision to be taken without going up a level. If two functions both seem legitimate, it is generally because the activity covers two: splitting it into two rows solves the problem better than a compromise.

Is RACI suitable for small organisations?

Its value grows with the number of interfaces, not with size. A team of five working on its own does not need it; the same team depending on three outside departments gains a lot from it, because it is at the boundaries that responsibilities become blurred.

What should be done with a matrix nobody rereads?

Bring it out at the moment a decision drags, and correct the row concerned in front of those involved. A matrix lives through those ad hoc rereadings, not through an annual review: a governance document never consulted in a real situation has the same value as a non-existent document, but gives the opposite illusion.