RACI chart: roles, worked example and practical rules

A RACI chart is a table with the project's deliverables down the left, the people across the top, and a letter in each cell (sometimes two, such as A/R): R for responsible, A for accountable, C for consulted and I for informed. It answers one question before work starts: for each piece of work, who does it, who signs it off, who has a say, and who just needs to hear about it.

The chart is only as good as one rule. Every row gets exactly one A. Two As in the same row means nobody owns the decision, and that is the gap a RACI exists to close. Keep the chart small enough to use throughout the project.

Disclosure: We make Breeze, the project management tool used in the task example near the end.

Contents

• What does RACI stand for?
• RACI example: a website relaunch
• Which RACI rules matter most?
• How to build RACI charts
• Why do RACI charts fail?
• RACI, RASCI or DACI?
• When is RACI overkill?
• How does RACI guide tasks?
• Common questions about RACI charts

What does RACI stand for?

RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. These roles distinguish who does the work, who answers for the result, whose input is needed and who receives updates. The University of Essex's project delivery guidance uses the same four roles and spells A as "Accountable/Approver", meaning the person who approves the work.

• Responsible: does the work. A row can have more than one R when two people share the work.
• Accountable: owns the outcome and approves it. One per row, no exceptions.
• Consulted: gives input before the work is final. This is a two-way conversation, so every C costs time.
• Informed: hears about the result. One-way, no reply expected.

The chart has a few other names. Memorial University of Newfoundland's research project management course calls the general tool a responsibility assignment matrix and RACI its common form. RACI matrix, RACI model and responsibility chart all describe the same table.

RACI example: a website relaunch

This sample RACI chart maps ten website relaunch deliverables to six people, with one A in every row. The names and assignments are illustrative.

Dana, head of marketing, owns the budget. Leo leads the project, Priya designs, Sam develops the website and Ana writes the copy. Chris leads sales; he is outside the project team, but his leads come through the new site.

Read the chart by row first. In row 6, Ana writes the pricing page and Chris is accountable for its accuracy. The sales lead approves the facts the copywriter uses. Row 8 has two Rs because Sam handles redirects and Ana moves the old articles. It still has one A to make decisions if the migration slips.

Then read it by column. Dana holds five As, which is normal for the budget owner, but it also means her approvals are the bottleneck: if she is away the week visual design and copy are due, the project waits. Leo is accountable for the build-side rows and responsible for the brief and the launch in this sample project. Chris has one A and a few Cs and Is, which keeps sales involved without putting him in every review.

A dash means the person has no role on that row. Leave people out of deliverables they do not need to work on, approve or hear about.

Which RACI rules matter most?

Four rules do most of the work: one A per row, at least one R per row, as few Cs as you can manage, and rows that are deliverables rather than activities. The one-A rule establishes who makes the final decision.

• Exactly one A per row: if two people both feel accountable, pick one and make the other a C. Essex's guidance puts it plainly: no task should have more than one role accountable, and conflicts get resolved before the project starts.
• At least one R per row: an A with no R is a decision with nobody doing the work. The A and the R can be the same person, as Leo is on the sitemap, and on small teams they often are.
• Few Cs: each C is a person who has to be asked before work moves on. Two Cs on a row is usually plenty. If you find five, some of them are really Is.
• Deliverables, not activities: "Page copy" works as a row. "Writing" does not, because nobody can approve an activity.
• People, not departments: "Marketing" cannot be accountable. Dana can. On a large programme, roles work as columns as long as each role maps to one named person.

The one-A rule is also the quickest check on someone else's chart. Count the As in each row. Any row with zero or two is where the project will stall.

How to build RACI charts

List the deliverables and people, assign accountability first, then add the Rs, Cs and Is. Agree the chart with everyone named before work starts. Starting with the As resolves disagreements about who decides before the team fills in the rest.

• List 8 to 15 deliverables: take them from the project scope. With fewer than eight, a chart may not be worth the effort; past fifteen, it gets hard to read.
• List the people: everyone who does, approves, advises on or needs to know about the work, including people outside the team like Chris.
• Fill in the As: one per row. Resolve disagreements about who decides before moving on.
• Fill in the Rs: then check that nobody carries more Rs than they can realistically deliver.
• Add Cs and Is sparingly: if in doubt, make it an I.
• Agree it out loud: share it with every person named and ask each one to confirm their column before the work starts.

Keep the chart alongside the simple project plan, not in a separate folder. If the plan changes, the rows change with it.

Why do RACI charts fail?

A RACI chart becomes hard to use when it has too many As, Cs or rows. It also stops helping when assignments stay unchanged after the team or work changes.

• A everywhere: the senior person marks themselves accountable on every row, so nothing can move without them. The chart describes a bottleneck rather than removing one.
• Shared accountability: "A/A" or "Marketing and Sales" in one cell. This leaves the team without one person to make the final decision.
• Everyone consulted: a row with four Cs means four conversations before anything ships. People add themselves as C to stay in the loop, when an I would do.
• Rows nobody can approve: activities such as "communication" or "coordination" that have no finished state.
• The chart nobody opens again: it lives in a kickoff slide, the team changes in month two, and by launch it names someone who has left. A RACI that does not match who is actually doing the work is worse than none, because people still quote it.
• Used as a weapon: pulled out after something goes wrong to prove whose fault it was. Once that happens, people negotiate their letters defensively and the next chart is useless.

Keep the chart short and alongside the work it describes. A one-page table that gets checked at every status report stays honest. A forty-row spreadsheet in a shared drive does not.

RACI, RASCI or DACI?

Choose RASCI when you need to distinguish helpers from the people responsible for the work. Choose DACI for a decision rather than a set of deliverables. RASCI adds a support role; DACI defines who drives and approves the decision.

RASCI and RACI-VS both appear in the Essex guidance as alternatives "to the same effect". DACI focuses on decisions: the Driver runs the process of getting to a decision, the Approver makes it, Contributors give input and Informed people are told. It suits a decision log better than a project plan. Most small teams who reach for RASCI would be better served by fewer, larger rows in a plain RACI.

When is RACI overkill?

A RACI is overkill when five or so people work on one project, use the same task board every day, and nobody outside the team approves anything. In that setup, giving every task a single owner does nearly all of what the chart would do, with no extra document to maintain.

The test is whether there is any real doubt about who decides. If the answer to "who signs this off?" is always the same person and everyone knows it, the chart adds paperwork and nothing else. Assigning one owner per task covers the A and R columns for a small internal team, and it is a habit rather than a document.

A small team still benefits from a RACI when any of these is true:

• Someone outside the team approves work: a client, a legal reviewer, or a sales lead like Chris in the example.
• Two people both think they decide: a co-founder pair, or a designer and a marketer who each consider the visual design theirs.
• The project runs long enough for people to change: anything over a couple of months, where new people need to see their role without asking.
• Sign-off has to be recorded: regulated work, grant-funded projects or contracts where approval is a formal step.

If none of those apply, skip the chart and spend the hour on the plan instead.

How does RACI guide tasks?

Record the RACI assignments on the tasks people use every day. Keep the chart as the agreed overview and check that task assignments still match it.

In most project tools, assign the Rs, add Cs and Is as followers for updates, and record the A where people can see it.

In Breeze, a task can be assigned to several people, which covers rows with more than one R, and assigned people show up in the task reports and the team workload view. Anyone on the project can be subscribed to a task without being assigned, to receive change notifications, which suits Cs and Is.

There is no built-in accountable role in Breeze, but an admin can create a custom field, such as a drop-down named "Accountable" listing the team, and the value shows on the front of the task card. Breeze does not draw the RACI table for you, so the chart itself still lives in the plan. Breeze project management also includes task boards, calendars and time tracking for small teams.

Whatever the tool, check the chart against reality at each status update. If the person doing the work no longer matches the R, change one of them that day.

Common questions about RACI charts

Can two people be accountable for the same task?

A RACI chart assigns exactly one accountable person (A) to each deliverable. If two people share the decision, split the deliverable into two rows or make one person consulted. Shared accountability is a common reason a RACI chart fails.

Can the same person be responsible and accountable?

The same person can be both responsible and accountable in a RACI chart. Mark that person's cell A/R. On small teams, the person doing the work often approves it too. Every row still needs someone responsible for doing the work.

Is the project manager always accountable?

The project manager is not always accountable in a RACI chart. They are often accountable for delivery, while the budget, brand or customer relationship owner holds the A for decisions in that area. For example, a sales lead can be accountable for pricing facts.

What should you check first?

Check that every deliverable has exactly one accountable person. Agree that assignment before work starts and keep it visible during delivery. The rest of the letters are there to keep the right people informed without inviting them into every decision.

Written by Lucas

Lucas writes content at Breeze and specializes in project management, team collaboration, and practical workflow advice. He helps small teams and growing businesses plan projects, track progress, and keep work organized by sharing clear, actionable guides.