Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI vs DICE)

What are they?

• A responsibility assignment matrix is a project management technique for clarifying and sharing project responsibilities across a cross functional team
• RACI is by far the most commonly used matrix

RACI	DACI	DICE	PARIS
Responsible	Driver	Decides	Participant
Accountable	Approver	Informed	Accountable
Consulted	Contributor	Consulted	Review required
Informed	Informed	Executes	Input required
			Sign-off required

• They are a tool for creating clear roles and responsibilities amongst a group of individuals who work closely together.
• They help drive a culture of accountability, they stop work falling through the gaps and help avoid duplication of effort or misunderstandings about ownership
• My preferred type is DICE.
• When compared to RACI → DICE uses Decides instead of Responsible and Executes instead of accountable
• I prefer DICE to RACI because:
• Every team RACI session necessarily starts with a round of definitions and disambiguation of the terms responsible and accountable. They’re often used interchangeably outside of work settings.
• It also feels like the CEO is ultimately ‘responsible for everything’ and therefore it’s hard hard to agree who should be in that box
• ‘Executes’ is much more clear than ‘Accountable’ - and less likely to be confused with responsible

How to implement them?

• Co-create the matrix with your team
• List tasks or activities as rows and people/or roles as columns
• Then populate each cell - if there’s some contention, have a discussion and make a decision

Example DICE: DICE = Decides, Informed, Consulted, Executes

When Are They Most Useful?

• Responsibility assignment is particularly useful when
• a team is new
• a new process or activity is introduced
• there are overlapping roles
• there’s confusion about who is playing what role
• team shape isn’t ideal (e.g. a team doesn’t have enough UX researchers)