What You Should Know Before Using the RACI Matrix: Benefits and Lessons Learned From Mistakes

A study shows that 86% of employees believe ineffective communication is the underlying reason for workplace failures. At Eagle Genomics, we understood this from the inside.

The company was rapidly growing and hiring new employees from different countries and time zones to work remotely. So, we faced a new challenge — miscommunication which caused chaos — not everyone knew their tasks.

We had to solve this problem before it got worse, and the RACI matrix was a great method to do that. Let me explain why.

What Is the RACI Matrix?

RACI is a framework that helps to clarify who does what in a project. It makes it simple to discuss roles and responsibilities within the company and make sure you have all the necessary people to start a project.

Another thing: employees should understand not only their roles but their colleagues` as well.

The RACI acronym means:

• Responsible: the person who does the work.

• Accountable: the boss who delegates the work, but ultimately is responsible for the final result to higher-ups, clients, or other relevant parties.

• Consulted: the people who give advice and help before the work is done.

• Informed: the people you keep updated on the progress.

  
  

Here's our example of the RACI matrix at the project start with the use of the Miro sample:

It takes a maximum of 20 minutes to define roles as we had decided to make the matrix separately for each team.

On the y-axis, we listed project tasks, and on the x-axis — roles.

Positive Changes We Got at the End

1. Improved communication between employees

The RACI matrix is useful in the whole project cycle, not just at the beginning of it. It helps to talk to the right people at the right time — no need to involve every team member in every decision. As a result, this makes it easier to communicate and make decisions quickly.

2. Avoided overloads on the project

I have often seen situations when managers take on a lot of responsibility and cover multiple roles in a project. In the end, they just burn out or even have some health problems. The RACI chart, on the contrary, lets managers delegate tasks and reach set goals without bad consequences.

3. Could oversee issues with the lack of roles

The matrix helps to ensure everyone is working towards the same goals and that their actions are aligned with the overall project objectives.

Pitfalls We Faced and How to Avoid Them

At the first glance, the benefits seem amazing. Nevertheless, there was a place for mistakes as well. Here's a list of them to consider and make the RACI work:

1. Thinking big

It is a bad practice to implement the matrix immediately at the company level if the business is big. I work in quite a big company with 100+ employees, 15 various teams, and areas they specialize in. As a result, we spent more than 2 months only on building the RACI chart.

That's how we aimed to blow:

Solution: Start with small teams and scale further to the whole company — do it little by little.

2. Involving everyone from the start

In my case, we wanted everyone to take part in building the matrix. But it didn't work well — we were struggling with coming to the optimal solutions as everyone had different opinions or even hardly knew what the RACI matrix is.

Solution: Form a group of company “evangelists” from all areas of work, and build the matrix with them. Only after getting it ready involve other employees — explain how it will work, and start using it.

3. Being too abstract

To generalize the process, we included all the possible consultative and responsive roles — you can clearly see it in the picture below by the number of roles in circles for different tasks.

In theory, it seemed good, but in practice, it turned out differently. The teams did not understand their responsibilities, got confused, and started making their own RACI matrix version.

Solution: Be specific — don't generalize by including all the possible roles for the task. Better to make sure everyone knows exactly what they need to do and can use the tool without any confusion or delays.

4. Creating an overly complicated RACI

Some companies put too many tasks on the RACI matrix, which makes it difficult for their employees to understand where to start. As a result, they just get overwhelmed and can't manage the workload.

Solution: Focus on 8-10 most critical activities. If needed, break the plan into several separate RACI charts.

5. Not explaining to the workers why you are using RACI

You can come across the issue that some workers have not heard about the RACI matrix and its approach. If so, it would be a challenge for them to use it.

Besides, it is not the best communication approach to let people think they are imposed from the above.

Solution: Plan a meeting where you tell your colleagues about the RACI matrix, its benefits, and which specific problem you want to prevent by implementing it.

A good thing is to use a short presentation — workers will be able to look through it from time to time to understand the method better.