RACI Chart: Essential Components and Best RACI PowerPoint Templates

Essential Components of a RACI Chart & Best PowerPoint Templates

It always helps if every employee in an organization has clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Lack of clarity can create confusion, leading to confusion and conflict among employees. In order to create a unit which can gel together to complement each other a RACI Matrix can be quite helpful. In this post we will explain the dynamics of a RACI Chart, with a list of the best RACI Chart PowerPoint Templates.

What is a RACI Chart?

The first thing we may ask ourselves when learning about RACI is what is a RACI Matrix? A RACI Chart (or RACI Matrix) is a responsibility chart which clearly shows the roles and responsibilities of each individual. Also known as the Responsibility Assignment Matrix or RAM, a RACI Chart shows what its abbreviation implies, i.e. who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. RACI Model is used for departmental or cross-functional projects and processes. You can use a RACI chart to assign tasks, milestones and the important decisions associated with a project.

Key Components of a RACI Chart or Matrix

The RACI Chart defines who does what, making it easier to differentiate roles, responsibilities, holding people accountable and enabling a proper mechanism to ensure that people are informed enough to be aware of how things are progressing for a project.

Responsible: The R in RACI stands for Responsible. This is also called Recommender. This is the part of the chart which shows the people who are to complete a task. There is always at least one individual who is responsible for the task, even if he/she is assisted by others.

Accountable: The A in RACI stands for Accountable. This is also called Approver and is the approving authority. This is the person accountable for the deliverables. Every task or deliverable consists of at least one person who is accountable for getting things done. This individual also ensures that the prerequisites for the tasks are met, delegates tasks and sees through the completion of tasks and deliverables.

Consulted: The C in RACI stands for Consulted. These are people who are consulted as subject matter experts. It is quite common for projects to hire various types of consultants.

Informed: The I in RACI stands for Informed. This is also called Informed. These people often require one-way communication, since they are informed once deliverables and tasks are complete.

Alternatives to RACI Model

There are a number of alternatives to the RACI Model. These alternatives provide different approaches which can be used for replacing RACI with a different mechanism for identifying roles and responsibilities

RASCI

This is an extension of the RACI Model. You can use this as a RACI alternative by adding Support to the model. Support helps complete the task assigned to the one(s) responsible. The model hence turns RACI into RASCI or Responsible, Accounted, Support, Consulted and Informed. 

RASI

With a slight variation of the RACI Model, this model includes Support in the model. As is obvious from the name, the Consulted is replaced with Support, making the model, Responsible, Accounted, Support and Informed.

PARIS

An earlier version of RACI, PARIS matrix defines roles differently. PARIS stands for Participant, Accountable, Review Required, Input Required and Sign-off Required.

PACSI

PACSI stands for Perform, Accountable, Control, Suggest and Informed. This model can be used as an alternative to RACI where a single person accountable for activities can be vetoed by various stakeholders.

RACIQ

This alternative to RACI Model includes Quality Review to the model by expanding the original matrix. RACIQ hence becomes Responsible, Accounted, Support, Consulted, Informed and Quality Review. In this matrix Quality Review implies those who check the product to ensure that it meets the required quality standard.

RAPID

Rapid stands for Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input and Decide. In this model the one who recommends performs most of the job. The pros and cons are measured up and recommended before the decision makers to decide. Agree implies the approving authority, whereas the Perform role decides who completes the tasks. The I role is advisory in capacity and the Decide role is responsible for making the final decision and held accountable for the decision.

Best RACI PowerPoint Templates

If you’re looking for a RACI template for making a RACI Diagram in PowerPoint or learn how to present roles and responsibilities, the following customizable RACI Chart templates can help you create RACI Model presentations. If you want a RACI template for Excel, you might want to check out our post about RACI Chart Template for Excel.

RACI PowerPoint Template

This is a template which gives a wide variety of slides for explaining, making and presenting a RACI Chart. You can edit the RACI matrix slides to create RACI diagrams and charts, explain the functions of the chart, as well as to elaborate the roles and responsibilities of team members.

raci powerpoint template

Go to RACI PowerPoint Template

RACI Template for PowerPoint with Sticky Notes & Blackboard

This RACI Matrix PowerPoint template has a black background with sticky note illustrations for making a Responsibility Assignment Matrix in PowerPoint. You can use this template for not only constructing your RACI Charts for a presentation but also explaining each part of the chart in the form of an individual slide.

raci template with sticky notes and blackboard

Go to Download RACI Template for PowerPoint with Sticky Notes & Blackboard

RASCI PowerPoint Template

This template can be used for making RASCI or RACI charts in PowerPoint. Since this is a customizable template with editable objects, you can easily add or remove content to turn this template into a matrix for presenting a RACI Model or stick to the expanded version, i.e. the RASCI Model. You can download this RACI Matrix template for PowerPoint to prepare your presentations to describe the RACI components of your organization.

rasci powerpoint template

Go to Download RASCI PowerPoint Template

Free RACI Chart Template For Excel

A project manager’s task, in essence, is to get things done. Project management requires thorough and careful planning and close attention to details as the tasks get accomplished one by one. Project management is part of many business activities and is an important key in many operations.

As we could see at the beginning of this article, RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed, which are key responsibilities of projects and business processes. A RACI Chart is also known as a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) or a linear responsibility chart. This chart defines the roles and tasks that need to be accomplished.

Easily Create a RACI Chart for Project Management

Create RACI Charts in Excel

The Free RACI Chart Template for Excel is a professionally designed template that you can use for project management to assign tasks and deliverables. With this RACI Chart Template, you can track deliverables of various members of your team in a project or business process to help keep your project organized.

Assign Tasks and Manage Multiple Projects Simultaneously

RACI helps a team to understand who is responsible for what.  A RACI Chart is also known as a RACI Matrix and it clarifies roles and responsibilities, making sure that nothing falls through the cracks.  RACI charts also eliminate duplicate efforts and confusion by assigning clear ownership for each task or decision.

RACI contains key responsibility roles that are reflected in the template. The “R” stands for the one who does the task or step in the project; “A” is the one accountable for ensuring that the task or step is done correctly and completely; “C” stands for the person consulted, which are typically subject matter experts or specialists; and “I” stand for those who are informed of the completion of the step and are updated of the progress. Some variants include the S letter, to form the RASCI concept instead.

The RACI template lets the project manager know which steps and roles have been assigned. This template conveniently lets you know if A and R have not been assigned by highlighting it so anyone can clearly see if the process is still yet to be done or assigned.

Easily Track Role Assignments in Projects or Business Processes

The RACI Chart Template contains tables for each project. You can write a Project Title and the Procedure, Department, and Date Updated. Under this is another table that contains columns for the Step, Description, and Entities. The Entities are columns where you mark R, A, C, and/or I.

Conclusion

The RACI Chart (a.k.a. RACI Matrix) can help clarify roles, responsibilities and accountability for projects and processes. By creating a RACI Chart not only can there be clarity in roles and responsibilities but it can also help in distributing responsibility in a balanced manner. RACI Matrix is widely used in project management and planning. Furthermore, the process of making a RACI Chart can help identify problems associated with the execution of a project before the problems arise. This can be done by identifying if there are too many Rs, if there are any empty cells and by considering stakeholder satisfaction. This can enable better project management for effective execution of tasks for successful project outcomes.

See the below link to download RACI Chart PowerPoint Templates for making RACI Charts in PowerPoint.

About Farshad

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