In project management, it is very important for all the stakeholders to understand the responsibilities and accountabilities of each person. While smaller teams can have more informal rules to keep track of responsibilities, in bigger teams with cross-department and inter-organizational collaboration, it is very important to create a more formal process to track responsibilities. This helps reduce confusion and leads project to faster completion.

One of the important tools for tracking roles & responsibilities is the Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI matrix). RACI stands for: * Responsible – Who is responsible for the execution of the task? * Accountable – Who is accountable for the tasks and signs off the work? * Consulted – Who are the subject matter experts who to be consulted? Informed – Who are the people who need to be updated of the progress

Example Usage
Let us take a simple example. John is developing a feature X that would be integrated with feature Y developed by Jess. Mike is the project manager and Irina heads the quality control. For feature X, in this case, John is “Responsible”, Mike is “Accountable”, Jess needs to be “consulted”, since her features have to work with John’s features, and Irina needs to be just “Informed”.
Why is a RACI matrix useful? * It lets the organization know if some people are assigned with too many or too few responsibilities. * It keeps everybody on the same page on who is accountable for a particular task. * Keeps all the necessary people in the loop and reduces miscommunications. * It helps you develop a simple communication system to keep those in the “I” category informed (through email or IM), while involving only those in the “C” categories for meetings and interactive communication. This saves everybody’s time.
How to make the RACI work