RACI Matrix: Definition, Rules and Common Failures
A RACI matrix maps activities against people, marking each intersection as responsible, accountable, consulted or informed. Responsible does the work, accountable answers for the outcome, consulted is asked before, informed is told after. Its purpose is to settle who decides and who does, before the question is asked under pressure.
What the four letters mean
| Letter | Meaning | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| R — Responsible | Performs the work | At least one per activity. More than one is allowed if the work genuinely splits |
| A — Accountable | Answers for the outcome and approves it | Exactly one per activity. Two is the most common defect in a RACI |
| C — Consulted | Input is sought before the work is finished | Two-way. Keep it short; every C is a delay |
| I — Informed | Told the outcome | One-way. No response expected and none should be waited for |
Variants exist — RASCI adds support, RACI-VS adds verify and sign-off — and are worth using only where the extra distinction changes somebody's behaviour.
How it is built and used
The rows are activities or decisions, not job titles and not deliverables. The useful granularity is the level at which a handover happens: "approve test exit criteria", "sign off data reconciliation", "authorise go-live". Columns are named roles, and named people where the role is held by one person.
The value is generated during the drafting session, not afterwards. Working through the grid with the people in it surfaces the intersections where two functions each assumed the other was accountable, and the ones where nobody was. A RACI written alone by the project manager and circulated produces agreement by silence, which is not agreement.
Once built, it is a reference for two situations: when work stalls because ownership is unclear, and when a decision needs taking and nobody wants to take it. It is normally produced in the same period as the charter and the stakeholder plan, which is why the charter and kickoff pack carries all three. On a programme the RACI is also the input to escalation design, because the accountable party for an activity is the first escalation point — a structural question covered in programme governance. Where activities cross team boundaries, the accountable column and the dependency register describe the same commitments from different angles, and the dependency tracking guide covers the second view.
Where it goes wrong
- Two accountables. Shared accountability is no accountability. If two names genuinely have to appear, the activity needs splitting.
- Everyone consulted. A row with nine Cs describes a process that cannot complete inside a sprint.
- Rows at the wrong level. "Build the solution" is too coarse to settle anything; a hundred-row task list is too fine to read.
- Built in isolation. Distributed for comment rather than agreed in a room, it records assumptions rather than commitments.
- Never revisited. Roles change, vendors change, and a RACI referring to a person who left in March is not an authority.
- Used as a defence. Where the matrix is produced mainly to prove something was somebody else's job, people stop putting their names in it.
Related terms
Stakeholder map — covers engagement rather than work allocation. Project charter — names roles at project level; the RACI resolves them at activity level. Accountability — the A, and the only letter with a one-per-row rule. Escalation path — usually derived from the accountable column. Governance — the wider structure a RACI sits inside.
Questions
Can two people be accountable for the same activity?
No, if the matrix is to be useful. Exactly one A per row is the rule that gives the tool its value. Where two names are unavoidable, the activity is really two activities.
What is the difference between responsible and accountable?
Responsible does the work. Accountable approves it and answers for the result. The same person can hold both, but the roles are distinct and separating them is often the point of the exercise.
How detailed should a RACI be?
Detailed enough that each row is a point where work or a decision passes between people. Somewhere between fifteen and forty rows suits most projects.
Is RACI worth doing on a small project?
On a co-located team of five, often not. It earns its keep when work crosses functions, vendors or geographies — anywhere the answer to who decides is not obvious to everyone.