In Six Sigma, a well thought out and proper Process Design is very important for the process to be efficiently implemented for a longer term. We can design a process for an existing process which has no proper design and documentation or of course for a new process that we create from ground up. For this exercise of process design, it’s very important to first identify the various tasks in that process then identify the roles (people or groups or departments) and finally their responsibilities for a given task. Not all roles have a responsibility towards a task and a given task may not associate to all roles. Typically we associate a task with at least one role or in some cases multiple roles. You can divide this ‘Association’ of the role with a task into the following four association types, which together form the RACI acronym (full form or pronunciation).
We can represent the above four types of association (of a role to a task) in a simple task versus role diagram or matrix or grid. We call this matrix RACI matrix (pronounced ‘racey’ matrix). So basically the RACI matrix is a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM), designed to assign tasks, activities, responsibilities, accountability, decision making, supporting to team members of a process/project and clarify expectations on the level of their participation.
There is another association type that we sometimes use in addition to the above four types:
When you use all the five types in the matrix, its called RASCI (pronounced ‘race ski’) Matrix. Lets go thru each association type in detail below:
The role or person or entity that we assign the role type ‘Responsible‘ is the one who performs the work. In other words he/she is the ‘doer’ of the task or activity. The person who is ‘Responsible’ need not be accountable for that task, even though in some cases the same person can be ‘Responsible’ and ‘Accountable’. The degree of ‘Responsibility’ can vary and multiple roles can share the responsibility of a single task. Also one role can delegate the responsibility to another role. Using the RACI matrix we can see if a role has too many or too few responsibilities and try to adjust the workload.
‘Accountable’ is the person or role who has the final authority and accountability to a given task. For any given task, there is only one role/person accountable. We can’t delegate this accountability to other roles or individuals or entities.
‘Consulted’ are the people or roles whom we consult and get advice from before and during performing the task. When there are many people who have ‘Consulted’ roles, the time taken to accomplish the task increases. On the other hand too few or no ‘Consulted’ roles assigned to a task means that task has the risk of underperforming.
Informed are the people/roles who, we inform after we complete the task. You need to assign the ‘Informed’ roles properly as otherwise it may lead to miscommunication and delays. You need to make sure the right people/roles are informed after we perform a task successfully. If too many roles are informed after a task, we need to see if it’s necessary to do so and minimize on that.
‘Supported’ are the roles/groups/departments that provide the resources and hence support that task. This is an optional role type and if the matrix uses this category along with the other four RACI categories, then its called ‘RASCI’ matrix.
Following are the advantages of RACI charts.
Lets take the simple two task example of designing the process for content management.
Task 1: Create Content
Task 2: Upload the content
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Download the Word template (docx) for Six Sigma RASCI Matrix
Download the Excel spreadsheet (xlsx) template for Six Sigma RASCI Matrix
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