See how to construct a matrix that governs responsibilities in your organization.
Given the amorphous and increasingly global nature of organizations today, project teams face numerous challenges in identifying the kind of roles different players play. As an example, who is responsible for creating business process procedures (BPPs) for the order-to-cash process that you are implementing in your SAP system? Who should be consulted?
Often, these roles are ambiguous and as a result decision-making becomes mired in inertia and chaos. Sometimes organizations lose out on a rare opportunity to wring efficiencies out of their business processes by taking a fuzzy approach or by simply not doing enough to clarify roles and responsibilities because of what I call the “that’s the way things are done out here” syndrome. The inability of project teams to figure out who is responsible for a certain deliverable, whose inputs are needed, who signs off, who is the final arbiter of conflicts for scope changes or design decisions, and so on, can adversely affect the completion of a project and thus cause cost overruns. At a more intangible level, not knowing who is accountable is the most convenient reason for passing the buck around when the time comes for taking responsibility for making decisions or standing by decisions that have been made.
What Is a RACI Matrix?
Enterprises can mitigate ambiguity by following a rather straightforward and convenient technique of assigning the role of individuals, positions, or departments in an organization from the standpoint of activities and responsibilities that is called a RACI matrix. The acronym stands for responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. It is a matrix that lists all the tasks and responsibilities on one axis and the person, department, or job role on the other. The cells are filled by the corresponding letter of the RACI role.
Definition of the RACI Attributes
The definitions for each of these roles may vary per organization although they should not differ that much from the generally understood implications of these roles. Nevertheless, it is of utmost importance for the Project Management Office (PMO) to establish and communicate these definitions to all the relevant parties at the outset of the project.
- Responsible: The responsible person is the one who actually does the work. If the work is a deliverable such as a document or a piece of code or configuration, the R should go in the field of the person who should be doing it.
- Accountable: The accountable person is the final authority for a certain activity. This person has the authority to approve or veto the activity for which she or he is accountable.
- Consulted: The consulted person is someone who provides information relevant to the activity primarily on account of his or her subject matter expertise. However, she or he cannot be held accountable for the final outcome.
- Informed: The informed person is someone who is kept in the loop. This person is not expected to provide any input. This role might sound superfluous but it is actually an important role. If you are responsible for carrying out a certain activity, you will want to keep your supervisor informed on a regular basis. The role of the informed assumes greater importance when you run into issues that you need the next higher level to resolve. An informed person is often a supervisor who does not play a direct role in the project.
Although I have referred to all these roles in the singular, in reality, all the roles except for the accountable person should have multiple individuals assigned. If the task is a deliverable of large size and complexity, having just one responsible person is unrealistic. Similarly, several people may need to be consulted if the task at hand is the design of a complex system. However, there should always be a single accountable person. Having multiple accountable people for a given task is a recipe for chaos and a chief contributor to managerial intransigence.
A Sample RACI Matrix
Before discussing its features and utilities, let’s first take a look at a sample RACI matrix that you could use in an SAP implementation. The RACI matrix shown in Table 1 is a high-level one that you can use during the blueprinting and realization phases of an SAP implementation that follows an ASAP methodology.
In this matrix, the major areas and responsibilities are on one axis and the positions on the other axes. As you can see, there is one A for each of the activities but there are areas in which one position plays more than one role. As an example, look at the activity Scope changes. The supervisor of the client business unit can both be informed as well as consulted. Because this business unit is implementing an SAP system, it makes sense to keep the supervisor informed. Also, because the supervisor is likely to know a great deal about the business processes and the people in his or her department or division, he or she should be consulted for input.
The Power of a RACI Matrix
There are five key advantages for using a RACI matrix:
- Visually strong: It is a strong visual representation of the roles and responsibilities the key stakeholders play in a project in terms of various tasks, work streams, and activities
- Portrays hierarchy: If you know who the expert on a given topic is, the RACI matrix also shows you the expert’s supervisor, allowing you to ask the supervisor whether the given expert has time for any inquiries you have. If you are a consultant on an SAP implementation team, a false start (even though you are doing the right thing by taking the initiative and being aggressive) can be detrimental to your chances of forming a cordial relationship.
- Beneficial for audits: The presence of a RACI matrix could be a viable mitigating control for the lack of a clear picture on roles and responsibilities including ownership. If your IT controls aren’t strong, having a RACI matrix itself does not change the opinion of your auditors, but is certainly considered a positive aspect.
- Warns about resource overload: It can provide you with a useful snapshot of the overall importance of various persons or positions (that are part of the RACI matrix) within an organization in the context of the set of activities in the matrix. For example, if the same person or position has too many Rs, it might indicate that there is a possible resource overloading. Similarly, if the person or position is a frequent C, it might indicate that this person holds far too much information and therefore could be a single point of failure. These inferences can help you take remedial action.
- Increases organizational efficiency: It increases organizational efficiency and helps in better utilization of resources. I have seen organizations that have used RACI matrices to reduce the time that project teams often spend in barking up the wrong trees. By making things transparent, this tool takes guesswork out of the equation. Moreover, it instills a certain amount of discipline especially in projects that are complex in nature and have numerous individuals playing various roles.
Business process procedures (BPPs) | A | C | I | I | R | Dataflow diagrams (DFDs) | A, C | I | | I | R | Functional specifications | C | A | | C | R | Gap analysis | C | A | I | C | R | Technical specifications | I | A | | R | C | Scope changes | I, C | R | A | C | C | IMG Configuration Documentation | I | A | | C | R | |
Table 1 | Sample RACI matrix for an SAP implementation project |
Anurag Barua
Anurag Barua is an independent SAP advisor. He has 23 years of experience in conceiving, designing, managing, and implementing complex software solutions, including more than 17 years of experience with SAP applications. He has been associated with several SAP implementations in various capacities. His core SAP competencies include FI and Controlling FI/CO, logistics, SAP BW, SAP BusinessObjects, Enterprise Performance Management, SAP Solution Manager, Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), and project management. He is a frequent speaker at SAPinsider conferences and contributes to several publications. He holds a BS in computer science and an MBA in finance. He is a PMI-certified PMP, a Certified Scrum Master (CSM), and is ITIL V3F certified.
You may contact the author at Anurag.barua@gmail.com.
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