As part of governance, content strategists often look into aligning roles and responsibilities regarding content operations. A so-called RACI matrix is a method that can be applied for that. This blog posts introduces the tool and how it can be used.
What is a RACI matrix?
A RACI matrix is a tool to map responsibilities and tasks / deliverables to roles (see Content Strategy Inc.). As such, it helps to bring together the roles and tasks or deliverables along the content lifecycle. The goals of creating such a RACI are to
- support the implementation of sustainable measures into ongoing content processes,
- support and communicate content processes that align with carbon footprint reduction objectives,
- assign responsibilities for steps within those processes.
As visible from the acronym RACI, the chart displays what role(s) are
- Responsible for actually doing the work,
- Accountable to approve the work,
- Consulted for content creation, for example, as subject-matter experts,
- Informed about the completion of a task or deliverable.
What to consider when creating a RACI
When creating a RACI matrix, it is important not to overboard one role with lots of ‘R’s, so one role should not be assigned to many tasks to perform. Also, only one role should be in charge of approving each task or deliverable. The number of roles consulted per task should be balanced well, so that there are not too many or too few. People of roles that are labelled as ‘Informed’ for a task are not permitted to approve the work; they are just informed about that task being finished.
It is significant to understand that one team member can have multiple roles of those displayed in the RACI and they don’t match with employee’s current position names.
To create a RACI, first, the roles that are involved in the (content operations) project have to be identified. Then, tasks and deliverables necessary for a successful achievement of objectives are listed and matched to the roles according to the principles as described above. See here for an example for a RACI.
As can be seen from this introduction, a RACI matrix is helpful to map tasks and responsibilities, also in the content operations area or for specific projects.