RACI aide memoire
Before discussing RACI variants, let’s recall the basic RACI model; RACI is a technique used within BPM to clarify responsibilities
and accountabilities for processes. The term RACI is an acronym for “Responsible”, “Accountable”, “Consulted” and “Informed”, and the
technique of RACI is to determine, for each and every process, who is Responsible for the execution of the process, who is Accountable for the outcomes of the
process, who is Consulted in the execution of the process and who is Informed by the process. These four characteristics of people involved with managing business
processes describe each of the key player’s degree of involvement in and liability for the process.
There are a number of models which vary or extend the RACI model. These variants exist partly due to a slight initial awkwardness in distinguishing between the “Accountable” and “Responsible” roles
in the traditional RACI model.
Our purpose in discussing the variants here is to enable you to identify and understand them; we do not suggest that you adopt any of these variants as the benefits of the variants do not, in our view, outweigh the downside
of using a non-standard model. We believe that standard RACI has the necessary and sufficient role identifications to support process-based management.
RACI-VS
RACI-VS adds two roles, viz:
- “Verifies” – the party that checks that a product or service matches its established standards and
- “Signs-off” – the party who approves the verification step and authorises the release of the product or service
This variant adds minor roles and potentially introduces confusion between the two roles it introduces. Additionally, it is quite common for verification processes to be separate processes from the main processes which generate
the product or service to be verified and thus these roles may only exist in the verification process, again inviting some confusion between the verification role and the verification process.
CAIRO
CAIRO adds the “Omitted” role (or, as our American friends might prefer, “Out of the Loop”). This extension is potentially useful in identifying specific cases where an organisational role, which might be thought to be involved in a
process, is specifically not Accountable, Responsible, Consulted or Informed. On the negative side, it should be noted that most organisational roles are not involved in most processes, so this extension runs the risk
that numerous positions need to be identified as “Omitted” for each process.
RASCI
The RASCI extension adds the “Support” role to the basic model, allowing for people who are co-opted to support the “Responsible” role in performing the task. There is a subtle distinction
between the “Consulted” and “Support” roles, as the latter may be tasked with performing part of the work of the “Responsible” party.
Again, the value of the extension seems limited relative to the cost of non-standard terminology.
RACI (Alternate mapping)
The one variant of RACI which addresses the most common RACI difficulty is the alternate mapping where:
- “Responsible” is the person responsible for the performance of the task; this is roughly equivalent to the standard meaning for “Accountable” and
- “Assists” is the party who assists the “Responsible” party in performance of the work and may perform the bulk of the work
This variant appears, at first sight, to resolve the difficulty in standard RACI of understanding the relative accountabilities and responsibilities of the “Accountable” and “Responsible” roles but, in our view, only weakens the
proper understanding of the roles. The notion of someone whose role is purely to “Assist” weakens accountability and, consequentially, makes process-based management more difficult to drive through.
This article is an extract from the “Teal Book” (Identifying, Documenting & Analysing Business Processes) available for on-line purchase at e-books.
