What a RACI matrix is
A RACI matrix (مصفوفة RACI), also called a RACI chart or a responsibility assignment matrix, is a table that sets out, for each task, who carries it out, who answers for it, who is consulted on it and who is informed of it. The division of roles is then written down instead of being understood implicitly.
The name is made of the initials of the four role names: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed. Each row of the table is a task, and each column is a person or a role. The letter in a cell states the part that person plays in that task, so one row shows everyone involved in a single task, and one column shows every task in which a single person has a part.
The point of the definition is in its last clause. Before a RACI matrix exists, the division of roles lives in what people understand, and what one person understands can differ from what the next person understands. Once the roles are entered in a table, the division becomes something that can be checked, questioned and corrected. Writing the roles down in this way is a step along the scale that formalization describes: the extent to which work is run by written rules and procedures, as against what is left to people’s judgement at the moment a situation arises.
The four roles in a RACI matrix
- Responsible. It names the person who does the work. A task can have more than one Responsible person.
- Accountable. It is the role of the person who answers for the outcome and approves it. Each task has one Accountable person and no more, and this is the constraint on which the whole matrix rests.
- Consulted. It covers the person whose opinion is sought before the decision. The communication runs in both directions: a view is asked for, and a view is given.
- Informed. It refers to the person who is told after the decision. The communication runs in one direction: the decision is passed on, and no view is sought in return.
The last two roles differ in timing and in direction. A Consulted person contributes before the decision is taken, while an Informed person learns of the decision once it has been taken. Moving someone from the Informed role to the Consulted role therefore adds a voice to the decision, and moving someone the other way takes a voice out of it.
What a RACI matrix is not
A RACI matrix should not be confused with a delegation of authority matrix (مصفوفة تفويض الصلاحيات). That is a different tool, and it answers a different question: who holds the power to approve what, and up to what limit. The limits of the authority delegated to each management level, which an organizational manual records, are limits of that second kind.
A RACI matrix states no limits and no amounts. What it does is assign roles on a task: who carries the task out, who approves its result, who is asked beforehand and who is told afterwards. A delegation of authority matrix answers how far an approval power extends, whereas a RACI matrix answers who plays which part in a piece of work.
The constraint that makes a RACI matrix work
There is one Accountable person for each row. If two people are Accountable, then in effect nobody is, because the outcome no longer rests on a single person. If nobody is Accountable, the task has no owner.
What a RACI matrix reveals when it is first filled in is not a new division of work. It is rows with no Accountable person, alongside other rows with two. Finding those rows is in itself the first return the matrix gives. Filling in the table puts the question of who approves each task to the people involved, one row at a time, and a row that has no answer shows a gap that existed before anyone wrote it down.
The constraint applies to the Accountable role alone. A row can hold more than one Responsible person, and it can hold a Consulted person and an Informed person as well, and still meet the constraint. What has to appear exactly once in the row is the letter A.
The difference between Responsible and Accountable in a RACI matrix
Confusing these two roles is a mistake to guard against when a RACI matrix is filled in. The Responsible person carries out the work. The Accountable person makes sure that what has been carried out is correct, and approves it. The first role concerns doing the work, and the second concerns answering for its result.
The two roles can be held by one person on small tasks, where the same person does the work and signs it off. Yet separating them is what makes the matrix useful on tasks that pass through more than one pair of hands. On a task of that kind, the people who carry out parts of the work and the person who approves the whole are different people, and the matrix records which is which.
What undermines a RACI matrix
- Too many Consulted people. Each consultation slows the decision, since the view that is sought has to arrive before the decision is taken. A row with five people consulted describes a decision that may never be taken.
- Filling it in once and then forgetting it. Roles change, so a matrix holds the division of work as it stood on the day it was filled in. An out of date matrix that people still cite is worse than having none.
- Breaking it down into fine tasks until it becomes a document nobody opens. The suitable level is decisions and outputs, not steps. Rows for the steps of a procedure add length to the table without adding a decision to it.
- Using it to entrench the way things are instead of correcting it, so that disorder is documented in a neat table. A matrix copied from current practice, with two Accountable people on one row and none on another, keeps the problem and gives it a tidy form.
Where a RACI matrix helps HR
The natural place for a RACI matrix in HR is in procedures that pass through more than one party: approving a hire, approving pay increases such as those shared out in a salary review, exit clearance (إخلاء الطرف) when an employee leaves, and handling an employee grievance (التظلم الوظيفي).
In these procedures a RACI matrix is a tool for shortening the time they take, not for documenting the structure. The reason is that what can hold such procedures up is uncertainty over who gives the approval. A row that names one Accountable person for each approval in the procedure addresses that uncertainty for the task the row covers.
This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.
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