It’s a fact: Complex projects make it easy for teams to lose track of tasks.
You might have an air-tight project plan and a stellar team to back it up. But if you’re not crystal clear about assignments—or even involvement—on a task level, confusion, crankiness, and even demotivation will creep into your project team.
Lucky for you, avoiding those issues is as simple as creating a RACI chart.
In this article, we’ll explain what RACI stands for and how it’s used in project management. We’ll also share a few practical examples so you can see how to apply the RACI model to different types of projects.
A RACI chart—also known as a responsibility assignment matrix—is a diagram used in project management to define team roles across 4 categories: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. It helps clarify who does the work, who calls the shots, whose opinion matters, and who needs to stay in the loop for each task, milestone, or decision.
A RACI chart enables you to visualize roles and responsibilities at a more granular level than simple resource assignments. That way team members and stakeholders know what’s expected of them so confusion doesn’t get in the way of project success.
RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. Each letter in the acronym represents the level of ownership each person involved in a project will have on an individual deliverable.
This simple chart gives you an at-a-glance view of RACI meanings and how many people to assign to each role in your RACI matrix.
This team member does the work to complete the task. Every task needs at least one Responsible party, but it’s okay to assign more.
This person delegates work and is the last one to review the task or deliverable before it’s deemed complete. On some tasks, the Responsible party may also serve as the Accountable one. Just be sure you only have one Accountable person assigned to each task or deliverable. (Note: It might not be your project manager!)
Every deliverable is strengthened by review and consultation from more than one team member. Consulted parties are typically the people who provide input based on either how it will impact their future project work or their domain of expertise on the deliverable itself.
Informed stakeholders simply need to be kept in the loop on project progress, rather than roped into the details of every deliverable.
The same person can be both Responsible and Accountable for a task in RACI—including a project manager. But they’re not one and the same. So what’s the difference?
At its core, the RACI model helps you set clear expectations about project roles and responsibilities. That way you don’t have multiple people working on the same task or against one another because tasks weren’t clearly defined on the front end.
A RACI chart also encourages team members to take responsibility for their work—or defer to someone else when needed. Essentially, you’ll remove personal judgment and politics from your process and focus on your team’s ability to act responsibly within a framework you’ve created. Sounds pretty sweet, huh?
Building a RACI chart for your project is a relatively simple task. The hardest part is thinking through all the people involved in your project and what role makes the most sense for individuals at each stage of work.
You’ll want to map out a RACI chart for your project during the planning stage. This ensures responsibilities are clearly defined before work begins and gives you time to adjust to avoid any gaps or overlaps in assignments.
Here are the basic steps for making a RACI chart:
Once your RACI chart is good to go, you can create a communication plan that aligns with the roles you’ve outlined for project teams and stakeholders.
Want to save time? Download our free RACI Excel template, or see how TeamGantt's built-in RACI feature works.
Using a RACI chart is a whole lot easier when you follow a few simple rules. Once your RACI chart is complete, review it to be sure it meets these criteria:
These best practices can help you get the most out of RACI:
Lay a clear path to success with a visual plan that’s easy to understand, and keep everyone in sync with flexible workflows and team collaboration.
Let’s take a closer look at how you might put the RACI model to work on real-life projects.
We’ll start with a simple example. Imagine you’re creating a RACI chart for a handout your marketing manager will distribute at an industry conference.
Basic tasks for this project might include:
In this project example, we’ve assigned RACI roles to 7 key team members:
Let’s zoom in on the RACI roles we mapped out for the Create content task example so you understand the why behind these assignments.
Now let’s look at a more complex project example.
Developers who use an Agile workflow to tackle the job likely know what they need to do because there’s a constant stream of communication. But cross-functional departments and senior leaders might need more clarity.
Here’s how you might map RACI roles to major tasks in a software development project, broken down by key tasks and RACI roles. (For the Informed assignments, we only listed people who need detailed progress updates to keep our example easier to read.)
A RACI chart serves just about every project well. But it’s especially helpful when tasks require multiple resources, run concurrently, or depend on other tasks.
Here are a few scenarios when the RACI model is useful:
Of course, not all teams and projects are created equally. You might work with a team who just happens to communicate really well and stays on top of their own work. (Lucky you!) Or maybe your project is small enough that it would be silly to take the time to go through this exercise.
In cases like these, don’t worry about taking the extra step of creating a RACI chart. Just be sure you have a clear plan in place to guide your team and project.
Further reading: How to Create a Realistic Project Plan: Templates & Examples
Now let’s walk through a few common mistakes that could hinder your RACI chart’s effectiveness.
Creating a RACI chart in a vacuum is never a good idea. In a best-case scenario, you’d sit down with your team and stakeholders to walk through the role assignments on each task. But let’s be real: That’s not always possible.
Just be sure everyone represented has acknowledged and agreed to the roles and responsibilities you’ve laid out. More importantly, you want to check that your chart eliminates any further project confusion.
It’s easy to build a RACI chart at the start of a project, then let it collect dust once the real work begins. But remember: This chart will defend you against mishaps that arise when you have too many cooks in the kitchen or a team member who thinks someone else is handling the work.
That’s why it’s important to keep these roles top of mind throughout a project’s life cycle. You can do this by reviewing RACI assignments for upcoming tasks in weekly status update meetings and making sure everyone involved in a project has easy access to the RACI chart.
In TeamGantt, you can assign RACI roles directly in your project plan so they’re clearly visible as team members work their way to the finish line.
If you have a lot of Consulted and Informed roles on your chart, make sure you have an easy and lightweight way to keep them informed. It could be as simple as making sure department heads and senior leaders have access to your project plan so they can follow progress along the way.
Managing a project with external clients or stakeholders? Sharing a view-only link to your project in TeamGantt is a great option for looping in folks outside your organization.
Further reading: A Project Manager’s Guide to Effective Stakeholder Management
A RACI chart is a simple tool that makes projects easier to manage by creating less confusion and more accountability. But you’ve got more than roles and responsibilities to keep straight.
TeamGantt makes it easy to build a project plan your whole team can contribute to and collaborate on. Everything happens online, so you can stay on top of deadlines and monitor progress in real time.
Use our built-in RACI chart to assign roles and keep them visible from project start to finish, so everyone knows how they contribute to success.
