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PLANNING, PROJECT MANAGEMENT

How to Make a RACI Chart for a Project

(With Example)
by Peter Landau | Sep 9, 2022

Table of Contents

What Is a RACI Chart? When to Use a RACI Chart

What Does RACI Stand For? Advantages of Using a RACI Chart

RACI Chart Example Disadvantages of Using a RACI Chart

How to Create a RACI Chart RACI Chart Alternatives

RACI Chart Template ProjectManager Is Better than RACI Charts

The better team members know their roles and responsibilities, the better a project will run. The last thing you want on
a project is confusion, so communicating role distinctions early on in the project is crucial.

A RACI chart allows project managers to do exactly that. It’s an efficient way to ensure everyone is on the same page
and understands what they have to do.

What Is a RACI Chart?

A RACI chart is a visual tool that shows the roles and responsibilities of team members for project tasks and
deliverables. This makes it clear who is doing what in the project and avoids any confusion that could slow down
production and eat into costs.

Project management software with team management and reporting tools makes it easy to define the roles and
responsibilities of your team members while keeping stakeholders informed. ProjectManager, for instance, has online
team collaboration tools that allow you to assign work, track and collaborate with your team in real time. Unlike
lightweight products, there’s no setup required. Get started for free.

ProjectManager’s team management tools go beyond RACI charts. Learn more

Let’s take a closer look at what RACI stands for and the significance of each of those categories in the responsibility
assignment matrix.

What Does RACI Stand For?

RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. Each letter is a category that’s used on the RACI
matrix to define team members’ roles in a project.

Responsible

Each task must have at least one responsible team member who does the work to complete the task. There can be,
however, more than one responsible party assigned on the RACI matrix.

Accountable

This team member is in charge of delegating work and approving deliverables before they can be deemed complete.
Sometimes the responsible team member is also the accountable one on the RACI chart. But every task must have
one accountable person attached to it, and it’s not always the project manager.

Consulted

This team member will review a deliverable, providing feedback that puts the deliverable in context to the whole
project or just within its own expectations.

Informed

These are the team members who must know what’s happening with the execution of tasks but don’t have the same
level of responsibility as those listed above. They can be given a general report on progress rather than digging into
the details.

RACI Chart Example

Now that we’ve learned about the responsible, accountable, consulted and informed roles and their responsibilities,
let’s look at a RACI chart example.

The RACI template below shows the project tasks in the left column, while the team members are shown in the top
row. We can see that the RACI model allows assigning each person a different role for each task.

Let’s focus on the financial analyst’s roles and responsibilities. We can see that he’s responsible for the financial study
and the financial plan while the design director is accountable for the design UI and informed about creating mockups.

Now we’re ready to learn how to create a RACI matrix.

How to Create a RACI Chart

All projects can benefit from the clear expectations provided by using a RACI chart, but it’s especially helpful when
managing multiple resources or having task dependencies.

To fully flesh out the process of making a RACI chart, let’s create a project using a RACI matrix example. Let’s say
you’re building an addition to your home. These three steps will outline how you create a RACI matrix.

1. Identify Roles & Responsibilities

Across the top of your RACI chart template, list the people involved in the project including the client or homeowner
who is having the construction done. Then there’s the architect, who is responsible for drawing the plans. The project
manager is overseeing the whole project from start to finish. There’s a contractor, who, with their team, is responsible
for the actual build. There are likely to be many more subcontractors, such as electricians, roofers, et al., but we’ll keep
our RACI model simple.

2. List Tasks, Deliverables and Milestones

Next, you want to have a thorough list of the tasks, including milestones, and any decision-making processes to be
listed in the far-left column. This includes tasks like reviewing the plans by the architect, estimating the budget,
getting permits, preparing the site and doing any excavation that’s necessary. You might have to lay a foundation, add
plinth beam and slab, masonry, flooring or roofing, doors and windows, electrical and plumbing, fixtures, etc.

3. Assign Tasks, Roles and Responsibilities

Under each person on the project team add the R NResponsible), A (Accountable), C (Consulted) or I NInformed),
depending on their relation to the tasks on the left column. For example, the architect would be the responsible team
member for delivering the completed project plan, while the project manager would be accountable for making sure
that plan is compliant with any regulatory issues. The client or homeowner would be consulted to make sure the plans
meet their specifications, but for much of the actual build would only be informed of the progress.

RACI Chart Template

Now that you understand how RACI charts work, and the process to make them, you can use our free RACI chart
template to help you get started.

When to Use a RACI Chart

RACI charts are an effective project planning tool that facilitates managing teams’ and stakeholders’ expectations.
While they’re versatile and simple to use, they might not be the best fit for some projects. Here are some of the best
scenarios to use a RACI chart.

When tasks require collaboration: There are projects that involve more cross-functional teamwork
than others. RACI charts are useful for project tasks that involve the input of multiple parties.

When there are lots of task dependencies: Knowing who’s responsible, accountable, consulted and
informed for a task is very useful when managing task dependencies.

When projects require lots of decision-making: Some projects such as product development
projects involve constant customer feedback and decision-making when deciding what product
features to launch next. RACI charts are a great way to assign roles and responsibilities for both team
members and stakeholders so that the decision-making process is as smooth as possible and only
involves the right people.

When starting projects: Defining roles and responsibilities is a need of any project team. Using a
RACI chart at the beginning, during your ideation and planning stages is always advisable.

When onboarding new team members: RACI charts are simple to understand. Their simplicity
makes them a great new team member onboarding tool, as it allows new members to quickly
understand how they fit into the team with just one quick look.

Advantages of Using a RACI Chart

The more structure, direction and clear definition you can give your project team, the better suited they will be to get
their work done on time and without wasting valuable resources. Here are some of the top benefits of using a RACI
chart.

A RACI chart is setting expectations and accountability as everyone is aware of what they and the
rest of the team do.

RACI charts are simple to read and use for both team members and stakeholders.

RACI charts are a great way to avoid having too many resources allocated to one task.

By helping team members understand each other’s roles, RACI charts can foster team collaboration.

RACI charts help avoid having “too many cooks” for certain tasks and decisions.

As an added bonus, these definitions remove many of the personality issues and office politics that hinder
productivity. You’ve given your team a RACI framework, so they know where they stand and where other team
members stand. Teams are happier this way, and it streamlines communications. Team members can look back at the
RACI chart at any time during the project and know who is responsible for what, instead of having to pull everyone
away from what they’re doing.

Disadvantages of Using a RACI Chart

There are pros and cons to using the RACI model to manage your project teams. Here are some of the most common
disadvantages of using a RACI matrix.

RACI charts can become obsolete if changes are made to the project plan and team roles.

RACI charts can become hard to read for large teams.

The RACI model roles might not exactly reflect what your team members and stakeholders do.

The RACI model might slow down certain tasks and deliverables, as they require the involvement of
multiple people.

RACI Chart Alternatives

RASCI Matrix: As the name suggests, this is very similar to a RACI chart. The only difference is that
this model adds another letter, which stands for “supportive.” Supportive team members will help
“responsible” team members with their tasks.

DACI Chart: A DACI chart, like a RACI chart, is a responsibility assignment matrix. DACI stands for
Driver, Approver, Contributor and Informed. It can be a great alternative to RACI charts, as these roles
are the best fit for some teams.

RAPID Responsibility Matrix: Another responsibility assignment model that’s especially good for
projects with intensive decision-making. RAPID stands for Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input and
Decide. The RAPID matrix clearly defines authority and accountability, reducing conflicts.

ProjectManager Is Better than RACI Charts

With ProjectManager, you can achieve much more than by only using RACI charts and other static documents.
Everyone on the team can keep track of their own tasks and can check them off as completed. The project and due
date are also listed. Just click on an individual task for even more details. Team members can add their own to-do list
to the task to manage their work and keep them on track.

Project managers can keep up on the team’s progress with the real-time dashboard, which follows six project metrics
that are updated instantly when team members update their work. For more in-depth analysis, ProjectManager has
one-click reporting that provides detailed data on task progress, costs and workload, among others.

There’s a workload page that allows project managers to make sure that no one team member is under or over-
allocated. ProjectManager goes beyond a responsibility assignment matrix and helps you better manage your teams,
make data-driven decisions and optimize your project resources in real-time.

ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that takes the roles and responsibilities defined on
your RACI chart and turns them into a dynamic tool to manage teams and workload. Project managers get
transparency into the project to monitor progress and reallocate resources to keep team members from getting
blocked. See how ProjectManager can keep your team members accountable and productive by taking this free 30J
day trial today.

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