What is responsibility charting?
Responsibility charting is a project management technique that is extensively used to clearly define and assign accountability across all members of a project team. This method ensures that each team member understands their specific roles and responsibilities, thereby enhancing communication and collaboration within the team.
A responsibility chart is a great tool to help you better understand:
- Who owns the major activities and deliverables in your project
- The decision-making authority of each person on your team.
- How roles and responsibilities are defined within the team structure.
What is RACI?
RACI is a type of responsibility chart that shows who is responsible for what tasks. It's often used to assign roles, but it can also help teams work together more effectively.
RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed. The letters indicate the level of involvement in any given task:
- Accountable (A): This person sets goals and expectation, creates the plan, makes final decisions, and is responsible for the outcome. Every activity should no more and no less than one accountable party
- Responsible): This person completes some or all of the work
- Consulted (C): Major decisions shouldn't be finalized before considering this person's input
- Informed (I): This person should be notified every time there is a major update
What are the benefits of a RACI chart?
A RACI chart is a simple but powerful tool for clarifying roles and responsibilities in any project. It’s useful for making sure everyone on a team is aligned on the scope of the project, who is accountable for doing it, how they work together with other team members, and how they provide information or feedback.
The benefits of RACI charts are:
- Decision making – When you know who’s accountable for each area of the project and how you will communicate among team members, you can make effective, informed decisions quickly.
- Communication – A clear understanding of your role will help you identify questions or concerns early so they don’t get lost along the way. Your communication should always be accurate and timely because this helps ensure that everyone stays informed and accountable throughout the project cycle
- Accountability – When roles are clearly defined, people can be held accountable for their actions (or inaction) in meeting certain deadlines or milestones
Activities vs Tasks
As a personal preference I like to set a clear distinction between an “activity” (listed on a RACI chart) and a “task” or “action item” (listed elsewhere in your project plan). When I use the word “activity”, I’m referring to a broad area of responsibility that are never “complete” until the project is closed. In contrast, an action item should be a quantifiable increment of work with a definition of done.
For Example:
“Manage relationships with external vendors” is an Activity, where
“Send a check to the food caterer for the upcoming event”, is a Task
Creating a task list is significantly easier when you already have a well defined list of activities that make up your project scope, and each activity can be broken down into tasks and deliverables by the person accountable for that activity.
These definitions of “activity”, “task”, “R”, “A”, “C” and “I” are definitions that have worked for me and my teams, rather than a universal project management definition, and some project managers may use definitions that differ slightly or implement project specific rules. Whenever I use these terms in a project, I make sure to share a common glossary that reflects the shared definitions that we agree on. I recommend you do the same!
Conclusion
Responsibility charting is a great way to set clear expectations for your team and hold them accountable-but it's important to remember that there are many ways to do this! In my next few blog posts I'll be writing about my personal modified version of a RACI chart and the scalability that my modifications add to this traditional project management framework