RACI MATRIX: 3 tips for defining the role of the accountable person (or who should become the cutthroat)

Let me tell you a little personal anecdote.

In January 2011, I owned a house in Lyon. With my wife we decided to completely renovate it, even if it meant breaking everything up.

We decided to have a small 4-meter pool built to splash around with our daughters.

But after the pool technician poured the concrete walls... Horror! The pool was not in line with the house.

It was more parallelogram than rectangular.

Visually, it hurts.

The mason took over everything, but in the end... who was responsible?

Was it really the mason who cast the walls?

You will find these types of questions as soon as you do a responsibility table (RACI).

In a previous article, I told you that for a task you should only have one person in charge.

Here, we need to find out who is responsible for a group of tasks in the service of a more global completion.

In my story, the person responsible for the poor location of the pool is not the mason, but the architect who monitored the work and who did not verify the location before giving permission to sink.

We will say that the architect is “Accountable” that the pool, in the end, is in the right place and working properly.

“Accountable” does not really have a French translation.

That's a bit of the problem.

It could be translated as “guarantor of perfect completion”.

But personally, I prefer to talk about “head to cut” if things go wrong.

“Accountable” must ensure that the means are in place, that the control points are sufficient, that the people responsible for doing tasks do them correctly.

However, define someone OfAccountable is not always easy, so here goes 3 tips to define this role correctly.

Define a global scope of action for Accountability

The perimeter of theAccountable is on a complete process, or a group of tasks that allow a large deliverable to be completed.

In my story, the main deliverable is the whole pool. Not just the hole or the walls.

So, yes, it requires courage, because you have to give responsibility over a large area.

However, you will see that everything works more efficiently.

You will have a single person who will really care about coordination, that there is no time lost and that the interfaces between task managers are much clearer.

You'll see, everything will turn out much better.

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Focus on the decision-making power of the accountable

You have to put Accountable hierarchical levels that have decision-making power, influence and, above all, resources.

The person Accountable must have an influence on task managers.

It must empower them, or else be at a sufficient hierarchical level to influence the heads of the people responsible for doing tasks.

But I know it's not always easy.

You will have to push people who are more into politics, to appear and to be shady people to act than in a real desire to change the lines or to make processes perform.

Choose the person most impacted.

It will always be necessary Make the person most impacted accountable by the perfect completion of the deliverable.

For example, in my pool story, if it hadn't been in the right place at the end, I wouldn't have paid the architect.

If you put Accountable The person who is most interested in the good result is bound to change.

Often it is the person most downstream in the process.

The one who takes in the face all the problems that come up beforehand and who must then justify why the thing went wrong.

The final word.

You now have in your hands everything you need to define correctly The role ofAccountable.

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