As a Project Manager, your ability to get the best out of the matrix of activities of your project, make important project decisions, and manage how roles are delegated are what stand you out among your competitors in Project Management.
However, this is not the reality of most Project Managers, they often experience challenges in getting all these done and struggle to make vital project decisions.
In such a scenario, the missing link is the RACI chart, it is a useful tool that can be leveraged to document the roles and responsibilities assigned to your project team members. RACI is an acronym that depicts responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed.
The integration of the RACI chart into your project helps in boosting the overall efficiency and productivity of your team because it aids you in knowing who does what and hold anyone accountable for his actions and inactions as far as the execution of the project tasks is concerned.
The role of the RACI chart in Project Management (PMP) cannot be over-emphasized; it ensures the structural organization of the project tasks by ensuring clarification of task ownership. Also, it simplifies the task of onboarding new project team members. Again, the RACI chart assists in the arrangement of the project activities date thereby making them available to the team to enhance their project decision on time.
No doubt, planning plays a vital role in the outcome of every project but combining it with the RACI chart will further boost the team’s output by helping them to avoid errors such as omission. Sinnaps, an online Project Management tool can be used by the project teams in managing their activities. It supports effective planning, team communication, and collaboration among the members of the project teams thereby ensuring that everyone is on the same page.
RACI chart
The use of the RACI chart will help in the management of the complexities in your project by making them simple through the improvement of team communication and understanding thereby assisting you in keeping a full gaze on the project outcome.
In the project management RACI matrix, RACI stands for the roles that every stakeholder performs in the execution of a project. Each role is explained below;
Responsible: This is the individual who performs an activity or task in a project. He is saddled with the task of ensuring that the activities of the project are completed.
Accountable: This is the individual who is accountable for the project activities. He has the veto power to say yes or no. He approves the completion of the activities of the project.
Consulted: this is the individual that is responsible for the feedback on the activities of the project.
Informed: this is the individual that needs to be in the know of the decision or action to be carried out in a project.
RACI chart template
In a RACI chart template, you have a tool that ensures quality deliverables from your project by clarifying and communicating the roles and responsibilities of all and sundry in the project execution. RACI chart template is an easy to use tool that can be customized and edited by the project team.
RACI chart template can be used to do the following:
- Analysis of project workload: by pitching the RACI chart template against the individual or department helps in deducing work overload quickly.
- Project activities re-organization: this ensures nothing is overlooked and the team can easily re-plan and re-strategize their activities if there is a need to do so.
- Effective management of work assignment: it ensures proper redistribution of assignments to the individuals.
- It promotes effective conflict resolution: it creates a platform for discussing and resolving conflicts that could arise in a project.
- It documents the project’s status quo: it is useful for documenting the roles and responsibilities in any project of an organization.
All about Project Management Chart
- Online FlowChart Maker: How to Create it?
- Online Gantt Chart Maker
- Online Timeline Maker
- Project Gantt Chart: How to complete your plan on time?
- Gantt Chart Software for Project Management
- Project Management Chart: A tool to Achieve your Desired Project Outcome
RACI chart example
In this example below shows the RACI chart of a website development project.
Project deliverable | Project Manager | Planning strategist | Designer | User interface developer | Server developer |
Creating the site | C | R | A | I | I |
Design the page schematic | C | A | R | I | I |
Design the manual of style | A | C | R | C | I |
Template coding | A | I | C | R | C |
R = responsible
A = accountable
C = consulted
I = informed
RACI document template
RACI document template is all you need to identify the functions and processes within an establishment and it will painstakingly describe the vital activities or tasks taking place in a project.
Furthermore, the RACI document template assists in the avoidance of generic activities like unnecessary meetings. Again, it is effective for carrying out horizontal and vertical analysis of project data to aid thorough project management decisions.
The RACI document template is useful for handling change management issues because it will showcase the individual’s role conception, role expectation, and role behaviour. The use of the RACI matrix for the agile project helps in the proper allocation of responsibility and accountability in the software development projects to ensure that the desired goals are achieved.
ITIL chart matrix will give an illustration of the roles and participation of the individuals in the cross-functional processes in the ITIL projects.
Another tool that can be used by Project Managers is the Gantt chart Excel; it is an easily downloadable tool that helps them in gaining insight into their project activities. In the Gantt chart example, you can deduce the status of the project. Also, it will reveal the start and end dates of every task in a project.
Also, the PERT chart template offers you a model for analyzing the tasks involved to complete a project successfully. Sinnaps as a tool is embedded with other tools such as the Gantt chart to ensure proper management of project activities thereby aiding you in achieving optimum productivity and meeting the expectations of your clients.