RACI: who owns what, and why ambiguity stalls work
RACI is a responsibility model labelling each person Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, or Informed — a guard against the “everyone thought someone else had it” gap.
The most expensive ownership gap is the one nobody sees: the task everyone assumed someone else owned. RACI exists to make ownership explicit before that gap opens.
What do the letters in RACI mean?
Responsible — does the work. Accountable — owns the outcome and is the single point of answerability. Consulted — gives input. Informed — kept in the loop. The key constraint: exactly one Accountable per task.
Why does ambiguous ownership stall work?
Because work with no clear owner gets done by no one — each person assumes another has it. RACI removes the assumption, but it only helps if the assignments are real and someone checks that the Accountable person actually delivered.
Frequently asked
Can two people be Accountable for the same task?
No — that's the most common RACI mistake. Split accountability means no accountability, because each person can assume the other has it covered.
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