RACI Matrix

Origin. Project management practice; variants include RASCI, CAIRO.

Mechanism. For each task or decision, specifies exactly one Responsible party (does the work), one Accountable party (owns the outcome and has authority), and any number of Consulted (input required before) and Informed (notified after). The constraint is that exactly one person is Accountable, which prevents diffusion of responsibility.

Procedure. List tasks/decisions as rows. List roles/people as columns. For each cell, assign R, A, C, I, or blank. Verify: each row has exactly one A. Check for overload: any column with too many R's is a bottleneck. Check for gaps: tasks with no A are orphaned.

Applies to. Clarifying ownership, especially when multiple teams or functions are involved.

Limitations. RACI describes structure, not incentives. A person can be Accountable on paper and powerless in practice. The matrix also assumes stable task decomposition; in emergent work, the tasks change faster than the matrix can be updated.