Understanding roles is a perennial issue, but especially as a company scales and small-group communication breaks down it becomes more and more of an issue….
- Responsible. The people who do the actual work.
- Accountable. The one person on the hook. ‘The Decider’ as Bush II puts it.
- Consulted. Opinion contributors.
- Informed. One way updates.
(Via. RACI — Just about anything)
First off, I love the RACI pnemonic and I’ve used it for years with my teams. In my experience mentoring new leaders there are couple of things to watch out specific to RACI:
- Make sure the person you’re making Accountable understands that it isn’t automatically assumed they’re Responsible as well. A lot of new leaders take on the assignment and don’t enlist their team for help performing the work.
- Ask them to think thoroughly about whom should be Consulted. Enthusiasm for a new assignment can lead them to run off with their team leave out some key stakeholder. Ask them up front who needs to be Consulted and provide some guidance based on your knowledge of the organization if they’re far afield.
Chris Heisel 