A Raci chart or Raci matrix is a great and well tool to keep a good overview of the workload and the team members involvement in it. Therefore Raci give roles to each team members, based on the structure of the project. Within the RACI model you start out writing down all the tasks that 1 person is responsible for, and the involvement of some or all of the other member of the team will be completed.
The scope of a project and all tasks that make up the full workload of the project can be made easy if you start out a session to get a proper Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Secondly this WBS can form the base of your RACI model.
How to use a Raci matrix
A Raci matrix or chart is usually a part of the project plan. All information to manage your project should be within this project plan. The project plan is an important starting document, with all information in it to manage your project. Raci model is one of those basis that you should really have in one way or another.
The letters of the basic RACI model (more advanced models are called RASCI or CAIRO) stands for:
- R = Responsible (the one who is responsible for working on this task)
- A = Accountable (the who is accountable for the result and can make dissensions)
- C = Consulted (the one who is advising on the task)
- I = Informed (the one(s) who should be informed about the task)
Added letters to raci could be:
- S = Supportive (the one(s) who helps out the responsible person preforming this task)
- O = Out of the loop (if someone needs to be explicitly out of the task or part of the process)
The Raci-model in the picture below will give you a basic idea of how the RACI-model works and looks. Looking at the example below is a RACI type matrix, where you can see the activities on the left, and the team members on top. The next step is to put the right letters in the right box. This then gives everyone a fast and complete overview of the responsibilities in the team. Shown below is a good example of a Raci chart. The chart below is made in Excel, which makes it easy to customize:
