Simplifying RACI: It’s Time to PARK Your Project

  Risk Management  

In today's project management world, the RACI matrix (responsible, accountable, consulted and informed) can be a bit confusing to the “non-project management” people, which often make up most of the project team.

I have heard many team members complain, “What does ‘responsible’ really mean, and how is that different from ‘accountable’? Am I simply responsible for ensuring that something is done? But wait, that sounds more like accountable.”

Even as we go through the explanations for each category of the RACI, it is not easy to grasp the nuances between the different categories. Therefore, it is imperative that we correctly convey the responsibilities team members are to fulfill throughout the project life cycle—which is why I'm introducing a concept that should simplify the RACI, called PARK:

     Perform
     Approve
     Review
     Know

PARK offers an alternative way of conveying the intent of the RACI by aligning more tangible action verbs to the acronym. In most projects, it’s important to make sure it’s crystal-clear what roles (or even resources) are responsible for taking the appropriate action(s). Let’s take a look at each phase of PARK:

P = Performs

• I am responsible for performing the work necessary to …

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