Stop racing to the RACI
The 50s gave us some things I think are great—rock and roll, colour TV, the NHS. It also gave me one of my personal pet peeves: the RACI matrix. Yet I still hear of teams racing to the RACI as a solution.
At the time, it made sense. Work was predictable, job descriptions were rigid, and collaboration meant sending a memo and waiting three days for a response. RACI brought order to the chaos by neatly defining who was Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.
But fast-forward to 2025, and we work dynamically, across multiple teams, in ways that don’t fit neatly into four little boxes. Yet, some teams and consultants still spend more time debating who owns what than actually getting things done. I see so much brilliant collaboration in the teams I get to partner with everyday.
I get it. I used to love a well-defined RACI. I’ve sat in project meetings, colour-coding responsibilities, feeling like I was bringing clarity to chaos. But over time, I realised:
🔹 The real work wasn’t happening in the boxes.
🔹 It was happening in the spaces between them.
My problem with RACI? It’s a relay race without an effective baton pass.
A relay race isn’t won by just having fast runners. It’s won in the handoffs—the seamless pass of the baton between teammates. I’m not a runner, but I know this!
That’s where RACI struggles. It defines who runs each leg of the race, but it ignores the baton pass—the communication, coordination, and real-time problem-solving that actually moves things forward.
✅ Collaboration > Ownership
RACI assumes work happens in silos. But the best teams aren’t just a collection of well-defined roles—they’re a network of ideas, skills, and contributions that overlap in ways a simple matrix can’t capture.
✅ Too Many Consulted = Decision-Making Gridlock
A bloated Consulted list can slow decisions to a crawl. The best teams focus on speed and clarity over endless approvals.
✅ One-Size-Fits-All? Nope.
Work isn’t as linear as it used to be. The best teams adapt, pivot, and problem-solve on the fly—not based on a static chart.
Early in my career, I was laser-focused on my responsibility. Amongst many other things, I bought 12cm potted indoor plants to sell in supermarkets, never thinking to check with the gardening team buying the pots. Who were ordering 9cm ceramic pots.
A classic case of being so focused on my RACI-defined role that I forgot to collaborate with the person down the hall who could have helped us actually sell the plants.
It wasn’t the responsibilities that mattered—it was the connections between them.
I see why RACI still exists—it provides structure in complex projects. But maybe instead of focusing on roles in a spreadsheet, we should focus on how we actually collaborate.
Because in a race, it’s not just about who’s running—it’s about how well the baton gets passed.
I’m genuinely curious, is this just my biased view of a pet peeve? Or does RACI still have a place I’m missing?
