-
3 Smart Leadership Secrets To Increase Employee Engagement
May 24, 2013
-
Project Management on the Far Side of Complexity
May 24, 2013
-
How-to Guide: Change in Project Management
May 23, 2013
-
How Much Project Management Is needed in a Federated Organization?
May 23, 2013
-
Become a Proactive Project Manager
May 22, 2013
-
Project Management - Communicating Successfully
May 22, 2013
-
Talk Like a Project Manager
May 21, 2013
-
How to Project Manage a Pyramid
May 21, 2013
-
The Art of Project Management: Scale
May 20, 2013
-
Project Management Foundations - Understanding the Maturity of Your Project Office
May 20, 2013
What is the RACI/ARCI Matrix in Project Management?
October 15, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: HR Management, Organizational Structures, Team Building
What is the RACI/ARCI Matrix in Project Management? (#2 in the series The RACI/ARCI Matrix for Structuring Roles in Project Management)
By Swapnil Gyani
The RACI/ARCI Matrix is a responsibility assignment matrix system that brings structure and clarity to assigning the roles people play within a team. It is a simple grid system that you can use to clarify people’s responsibilities and ensure that everything the team needs to do is taken care of.
It is a system that brings structure and clarity to assigning the roles people play within a team. It is a simple grid system that you can use to clarify people’s responsibilities and ensure that everything the team needs to do is taken care of. Sounds complicated, how do I use it? Using the RACI/ARCI system, you list every task, milestone and decision, then clarify who is responsible, who is accountable, and where appropriate, who needs to be consulted or informed. The acronym RACI stands for (for ARCI you just have to flip Accountable and Responsible):
- Responsible - these people are the “doers” of the work. They must complete the task or objective or make the decision. Several people can be jointly responsible.
- Accountable - this person is the “owner” of the work. He or she must sign off or approve when the task, objective or decision is complete. This person must make sure that responsibilities are assigned in the matrix for all related activities. There is only one person accountable, which means that “the buck stops there.”
- Consulted - these are the people who need to give input before the work can be done and signed-off on. These people are “in the loop” and active participants.
- Informed - these people need to be kept “in the picture.” They need updates on progress or decision, but they do not need to be formally consulted, nor do they contribute directly to the task or decision.
Swapnil Gyani is a management consultant based in Mumbai, India. He has an extensive experience in managing Organizational Learning and Development, Project Management and Account Implementation in the IT-Enabled Services industry. He now blogs regularly at Insightlopedia, his professional blog.
Related Articles
feel free to leave a comment
Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!
XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
All fields marked with " * " are required.
- Agile Project Management
- Ask the Hut
- Certification
- Change Management
- Communications Management
- Computer Based Information Systems
- Concepts
- Corporate Transformation
- Cost Management
- Critical Chain Project Management
- Delegation
- History
- HR Management
- Implementing Project Management
- Integration Management
- Lessons Learned
- Management
- Miscellaneous
- People Issues
- PMBOK
- PRINCE2
- Procurement Management
- Program Management
- Project Lifecycle Phases
- Project Management Advantages
- Project Management Advantages
- Project Management as a Career
- Project Management Best Practices
- Project Management Charts
- Project Management Definitions
- Project Management Ethics
- Project Management for Beginners
- Project Management Guides
- Project Management Musings
- Project Management Office
- Project Management Proposals
- Project Management Templates
- Project Portfolio Management
- Project Workforce Management
- Quality Management
- Requirements Management
- Risk Management
- Scheduling
- Scope Management
- SCRUM
- Soft Management
- Time Management
- Training
- Uncategorized
4 people have left comments
Brief and clear explanation of the RACI matrix. Very good.
Do parent activities inherit the RACI roles of the sub-activities?
For example in sub-activity 1 a person has the responsibility role, at sub-activity 2 the same person has the consulted role and at sub-activity 3 the person has the responsibility and accountability role. On the major activity level, can the sum of roles for that person be defined as C+R+A?
Hi Taro,
Good question. The short answer is “No”, RACI parent activities do not inherit the roles of the sub-activities by default.
Additionally, even RACI sub-activities (or child activities) do not necessarily inherit the roles of their parents, eg. if a person is Informed on Activity A, s/he may or may not be Informed on its child activity B. Clearly, this is not a sign of a healthy RACI matrix, but it can easily happen even with the best Project Managers.
Are you able to supply additional info on this?