In other cases, the Accountable is a senior leader or executive who is responsible for approving the work before it’s considered complete. In these cases, the Accountable is responsible for making sure all of the work gets done. Sometimes, the Accountable is the project manager (or even the Responsible, though in that case the person is taking on two different roles during the task workflow). There are two ways to assign an Accountable role. Instead, aim to add additional collaborators as some of the other RACI roles, which can have more than one person.Īccountable. The Accountable person is responsible for overseeing overall task completion, though they may not be the person actually doing the work. If a task has more than one Responsible person, you can lose clarity and cause confusion. There should only ever be one Responsible role per task so you know who to go to with questions or updates. Responsible. This person is directly in charge of the work. By following the RACI acronym, you can clarify responsibility and reduce confusion.
What is a RACI chart?Ī RACI chart (sometimes called a Responsibility Assignment Matrix) is a way to identify your project teams’ roles and responsibilities for any task, milestone, or project deliverable. Whether you've never heard of RACI before or you’re considering creating a RACI chart for your next project, here’s everything you need to know about how to create and use these charts. RACI is an acronym to help teams clarify project roles and figure out who the responsible party is for any given task. Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby outside the Museum of Chocolate in Havana, Cuba.Can you identify exactly who’s doing what by when for each task, milestone, and deliverable in your project? If not, you might need a RACI chart. And it helps the organization perform at a higher level. Think about all of the MOCHA you could include in a project launch meeting. Oh, and I would be totally remiss if I didn’t mention that MOCHA could be fantastic from an internal marketing perspective. Most importantly, MOCHA still focuses on establishing accountability for a task or program! How can I make it work for me?” New ideas are formed all the time. It’s not always about copying what someone else is doing. That’s what best practices bring to the table. The other thing that I liked about MOCHA is that this organization took a concept like RACI and made it work for them. Not only does this help the group focus on those resources but it provides a way for those “helpers” to be acknowledged for their contribution. I don’t know that organizations spend enough time thinking about the help they might need to accomplish a goal. I particularly liked the addition of the helper category. I thought the MOCHA acronym was a refreshing take on the traditional RACI acronym. We need both owners and approvers to be successful. The approver could be someone in purchasing or procurement. But we need them for data, information, and sometimes just a supportive ear.Īpprover: Who approves resources for the manager or group? This may or may not be the owner. Helper: Who are the people that the group or manager taps into for information or assistance? There are always people who help us accomplish our work. They might have a regular role or be someone who is called in to deal with a specific problem or obstacle. Or maybe it’s someone that has a lot of influence in the organization, so we want them to be kept in the loop.Ĭonsultant: Who advises the group or manager? This could be an internal or external subject matter expert. Owner: Who is the organizational owner or sponsor for this task or program? Depending upon the type of work we’re referring to, this person might be a senior leader who directs a department or division.
They handle the everyday decisions and coordinate the front-line activities associated with the job. Manager: Who handles the day to day management of the task or program? Someone has to be responsible for the work – whether that’s a task, process, program, etc. I – along with several other people – immediately said we were stealing this one. I mentioned RACI in a training program recently and someone said they use a similar acronym called MOCHA. RACI is an acronym that stands for responsible, accountable, consult, and inform. A few years ago, I wrote a piece about “ Using RACI to Improve Organizational Teams”.