Podcast episode 052: it’s okay to be RACI!

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In Episode 004 and Episode 051 we discussed the Work Breakdown Structure and how it can help you as a team to clearly document your project’s deliverables.  But once you have completed your WBS, what’s next?

Well the next step is to develop a Responsibility Assignment Matrix, or RAM, using the RACI process.  I think you are going to find this to be a valuable tool to help clarify ownership to various parts of your project.  Soon your entire team will be RACI!

Define Activities Process

After you identify your deliverables in your Work Breakdown Structure, you will need to define those actions and activities that need to be done to produce the lowest level deliverables.  This is the first process in the PMBOK Time Management Knowledge Area and is known as the Define Activities Process.

In Episode 004 on Work Breakdown Structures we provided an example of a project of doing laundry.  A lower deliverable could be “clean dark clothes”.  Decomposing the activities under this deliverable could be “sort laundry by color,”, “select cold setting,” measure laundry detergent, add detergent to washer, add dark clothes to washer, check clothes once the cycle completes, unload washer, add washed clothes to dryer, select regular drying setting, check clothes once dryer timer goes off, fill laundry basket, sort laundry to iron, Iron laundry, Fold laundry, and Put laundry away.

Note that the order of the activities doesn’t need to necessarily be in order at this point, and additional activities can be added such as “add dryer sheet to dryer.”  However, once you have your list of activities for each deliverable, you are ready to use the RACI process to assign them to folks associated with the project.

Basically, RACI is a method to assign activities to resources by name or by function.
RACI is an acronym that stands for four types of task assignments:

• Responsible
• Accountable
• Consulted
• Informed

So, let’s talk about the four types of assignments.

Responsible [R]

The first type of assignment is “R” that stands for “Responsible.”  The person assigned as “responsible” for a task is the person, or role, that is responsible for actually performing the work for the task. A few guidelines to keep in mind…  When no one is assigned as responsible for the task, chances are that it won’t get done. Also, when many people are assigned to completing the work, it requires a lot of coordination and usually means further decomposition is required to make sure everyone is clear about what specifically they need to work on.  Finally, if a specific person is assigned as the “R” to multiple tasks they may become overloaded.  In this case, you may want to see if someone else can fill in as the “R” on some of the tasks.

Accountable [A]

The second type of assignment is “A” that stands for “Accountable.”  This is the person who is held accountable for the task getting completed.  One guideline to keep in mind for the person assigned as “Accountable,” insure only one person is assigned as accountable for each task being performed.  If you end up trying to assign multiple people to a particular task you will end up with a lot of finger pointing and confusion when issues occur.

Consulted [C]

The next type is Consulted – the “C’s.”  These are the people involved and consulted prior to a task being performed. Essentially, their input is sought after and factored in prior to action taking place. As the number of people consulted increases, the speed with which action can be taken decreases. Conversely, too few and improper decisions and actions may be made without those whose buy-in is required being assigned as a “C”.

Informed [I]

Finally are the “I’s” who are those that need to be Informed on the status and completion of a task. If necessary parties aren’t informed, then confusion and delays can arise from other resources wondering whether preceding dependent tasks are completed. However, if there are people that are informed that don’t need to be you may be wasting their time with emails or status reports on tasks.

So, those are the four types of Resource Assignments.  It should be noted that you may have resources with multiple assignments on a task.  For example, you may have the person assigned as Accountable for the task completion also Responsible for doing the work.

Here is a diagram of the RACI Process in a Responsibility Assignment Matrix for our example of cleaning dark clothes:

In the above matrix, typically my wife is accountable (A) to make sure that the rest of us in the household, including our daughters, are responsible (R) for sorting our clothes by color.  Trust me, if we don’t, she lets us know.   Sometimes I help with washing the clothes (R), but usually my wife does it (R) and makes sure it is done (A).  My daughters are pretty young, so they really don’t help out (X) on the washing and drying tasks until we start folding the laundry.  Conversely, I am usually the one that helps (R) and makes sure the drying gets done (A), although my wife pitches in as well.  I tend to make sure my wife is consulted (C) before I arbitrarily select a dryer or washer setting to make sure I don’t accidently miss something that should be washed/dried on the delecate setting.

Once drying is done and clothes that need to be ironed are sorted, I make sure the ironing gets done (A).  Also, my wife will not go near an iron, but she usually is informed (I)  when I am doing the ironing because I tend to forget and leave the ironing board out.

Finally my wife makes sure (A) we all pitch in (R) and held to fold and put the laundry away.

And that is how laundry is done in the Holohan house!

So how does this work for “real” projects?  Well, here is an example Responsibility Assignment Matrix for a Project Change Request (PCR):

Summary

So let’s summarize…

1. Place Accountability (A) and Responsibility (R) at the lowest possible activity level.

2. There can be only one person listed as “accountable” per activity.

3. If you assign someone as “accountable” on a task, they must also have authority assigned to them.

4. Minimize the number of people assigned as “Consulted” or “Informed” to prevent over-analysis and confusion on tasks.

5. All roles and responsibilities must be documented in the RACI chart and communicated.

6. Projects and activities change throughout the project lifecycle, and so the project RACI should be revisited frequently, especially when symptoms of role confusion appear.

Some examples of those symptoms include:

• Team members blaming others for not getting the job done
• Team members with out of balance workloads
• Questions over who does what or who is responsible for what
• “I wasn’t sure, so didn’t take any action” expressed by team members.

So…  Once you and your team have successfully created the Responsibility Assignment Matrix for your project, you will really know who does what and who is truly RACI on your project activities!

Tags: Accountability, consulted.ram.responsibility assignment matrix, raci, responsibilities, responsibility, roles, team