When working on projects, RASCI surfaces as an important tool. If you’ve never heard of this framework before, let’s try a hypothetical scenario to show you, its value. 

You and a few colleagues have been assigned to a large and important project. Let’s say you are the team lead with 9 others in your group. You’ve assigned one as your assistant, leaving the other 8 to manage tasks and fieldwork. Pretty much anything that isn’t managerial in nature. 

At some point you realize you may need some way to put on paper who is doing what on the project. Not only that but also how much authority they have to make decisions along the project’s life-cycle. Without some sort of mechanism in place, the likelihood something will go very wrong, very fast, will likely occur early on, turning your project into a disaster. 

Definition: RASCI is a matrix (i.e. chart, model or framework) that is used to help identify all the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder on a project. It clearly defines who is working on a specific subtask of a project. 

RASCI is short for: Responsible, Accountable, Supportive, Consulted, Informed 

RASCI charts take away the situations involving the “who does what”, “who can help with this task”, and “who’s responsible for this task” scenarios on many projects without RASCI. By using RASCI we can: 

• Quickly resolve project conflicts within groups 
• Efficiently manage projects 
• Eliminate all confusion by assigning specific tasks to each project group member 
• See that all project responsibility is documented and distributed properly 
• Identify if any one individual is overburdened with task assignments 
• Provide clarity by establishing the organizational project hierarchy 

Let’s expand on the definition a bit more: 

Responsible – Think of this person as the project owner. There can be multiple people responsible for a task and if help is needed, they may ask a supportive member(s) to assist. 

Accountable – This person has final control over a project task and the resources associated with it. They will generally assign and delegate project work responsibilities. It is highly recommended to only use one person accountable to one task. 

Supportive – Supportive people are able to provide resources to the Responsible project team members. They are actively involved in working with the Responsible person to see the project through to completion. Supportive persons and Responsible persons both have the same goals to achieve. 

Consulted – Those who are Consulted are there to help the Responsible person finish tasks with success. These people can be consultants in their respective field that bring valuable subject matter expertise to the project. Responsible persons will use Consulted for advice, opinions, help, or experience relevant to the project. 

Informed – These are people who need to be kept in the loop during the project life-cycle. Due to their status as a project stakeholder or the fact they will be impacted by the project, they will need to be informed about progress, at all stages, up-to and including project completion. 

RASCI and RACI – Is There a Big Difference?  

With many RASCI and RACI charts out there, it can get a bit confusing when differentiating between them.  

Both terms are used interchangeably quite often. While in all practicality, they do mean the same thing, there is of course a marked differentiator with the “S” in RASCI (meaning Support). Organizations that choose to use RACI, may do so because an “S” is not required to be identified as it can be part of the “R” (Responsible) or “C” (Consulted) as team members.  

What makes the biggest difference of including the “S” in RASCI is that it acknowledges the fact that those identified as a Supporter to the project are a resource that is a cost to the project and the Supporter’s time. Even though they are not directly responsible to the project task, they are involved providing experience, knowledge, technical skills etc. that have a cost attached to it, be it time, compensation or an activity of some sort. Using the “S” clearly shows that there are a group of unaccounted for project team members providing resources without responsibilities that are of critical impact to the project.

For example, a sales manager may be accountable for a software development RFP, while the sales rep is responsible for completing the RFP. At this point clarifications are needed from the engineering team. The engineer who is not in any way connected to sales, provides information in order to complete the document (contributor). The engineer is not responsible to complete the RFP nor are they accountable that it goes out-on-time and on-cost, however, the engineer’s experience and input is critical to the success of quality of the RFP responses and estimates.

By identifying the “S” in a project, it brings a more focused recognition to the specific involvement of project team members and helps to define the expectations and deliveries of each role.

Only One Responsible in a RASCI, Combining R & A’s and the need for ‘S’, ‘C’ or ‘I’.  

As responsibilities and tasks are spread out amongst project group members the preference is to keep the “R” and “A” limited to one per individual task. In essence, for each one task, one of the members on the team must be held responsible. The difference comes with organizations who have decided that more than one “R” for example may be required. 

For some organizations, a single party responsibility is best for the completion of a task. They believe that to brin two or more responsible for this one task would be an inefficient use of project resources. Other will argue that the task at issue carries great significance and that having more than one stakeholder be responsible is needed as the combined effort of the “R”s bring better expertise to the task. 

On another note, there will be times that a Responsible and Accountable party for a task may be the same individual. It is an obvious assumption on certain projects. When this is the case, there is no need to separately mention the “R”. In the case though of two people assigned the same Responsibility and Accountability, there needs to be at the very least, one “R” and one “A” per individual task. 

Lastly, there will be projects where an individual task does not need an ‘S’, ‘C’ or an ‘I’. Having gaps in your matrix is not an issue in the case and is quite normal. Not every blank cell needs to be filled in a matrix. 

The Impact of Not Following RASCI 

If your project is complex, involving many team members and a significant number of tasks then not using a RASCI matrix will result in an eventual negative impact both on the project team members and overall, on a variety of project outcomes.  

There will be no teams or even individuals working in harmony. Blame will be passed around; accountability is not enforced and decisions will be made without involvement or knowledge of other team member areas or worse yet even the smallest of decisions won’t be made, holding everything else up. 

Without proper assignment of duties, the possibility of time wasters and team members slacking off is very high. While on the other hand, certain team members may feel overwhelmed as they have been handed too much work to complete. Demotivated teams never deliver 100%.