Sometimes a project can start to look like “Who’s on First” corporate style. Who’s supposed to do this? What’s he supposed to do? I don’t know who’s doing the rest. As you can imagine, your project is about to devolve into a mess; an expensive, time-consuming mess. This is what a RACI document can help you prevent. Its purpose is to identify roles and responsibilities for a given project. It can tell you who’s on first.

If you came here looking for a “racy” model, boy, are you in the wrong place. This is the Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed model for assigning project responsibilities. It is a visual representation of who does what.

• R – the person responsible for the project, or the project manager.
• A – this is the person to whom R is accountable, so it may be an owner, executive, or supervisor.
• C – these are the people who have the knowledge or skills to complete the tasks.
• I – this is the person who needs to be notified of the results but does not need to be consulted during the project. A president or CEO, for instance, would want to know the final outcomes but not each step along the way.

Putting a RACI document together is a matter of plugging in the roles and responsibilities in a table. You need the following information:

• The various tasks to be completed.
• The roles that are to be involved (for example, project manager, board of directors, floor managers, etc.).
• Fill in gaps and eliminate overlaps. All this means is that there should be only one R for any one task. The R can change as the task changes. If there is no person responsible for a task, one must be selected. If there are too many, again, one must be selected.
• Analyze the completed document. Is one person fulfilling too many roles? Is he/she the R on too many tasks? Are there too many A’s, which may cause conflicts or miscommunications? Are there too many people to consult? Are the roles assigned to those who are skilled and trained to handle them?
• Are the roles and tasks clearly communicated and understood by the team members

While planning a project is multifaceted, RACI documents help you clarify roles and assign responsibilities. This is a step in the right direction.