Clarity Tools: The Responsibility Matrix

Some of the tools in this series might be difficult to visualize in your mind, so I’ve put together examples of each tool that you can use in your context on my website. Head to mcurtis.co/clarity to find worksheets and examples.

What is a Responsibility Matrix?

It defines who is responsible for various parts of a project.You may have heard of a RACI. That is perhaps the most well known of the responsibility matrixes. In my opinion, there is one that is better suited to the church space called PACSI.PASCI is helpful in organizations where one person’s work can be reviewed or vetoed by others who are outside the process. This is typically necessary in organizations that empathize collaboration. That is squarely where we sit, which is why I prefer PACSI.Perform: who is expected to carry the execution workload?Accountable: who is “on the hook” for the final product? Who do we talk to if things didn’t go the way we expected, or exceeded our expectations?Control: Who has the ability to speak in heavily and even veto the project? This person may not be directly involved in any of the development.Suggest: Whose opinion should be considered as counsel?Informed: Who should be informed of the result of the project?

What does a Responsibility Matrix do?

The only thing a Responsibility Matrix does is clearly define who is responsible for each area of a project’s completion.I’ve found two things happen when project roles aren’t clearly defined. They are wildly inefficient. They create mistakes. 

What does a Responsibility Matrix not do?

A responsibility Matrix doesn’t mean these out of bounds conversations stop happening. 

How did we begin to implement this?

Anytime we had a major project to work on, a lot of things went wrong. Things would be pulled out at the last minute, but their impact wasn’t what it could have been.We were getting changes from dozens of people, and some of it was undoing what someone else had just asked us to change.We needed to simplify the process, so we started asking “who is the project point person”. In other words, we were saying “who is Accountable”. Once we defined that, we spoke to no one else. From there, the other letters of the acronym became more clear.

This can be applied to large projects like our example, small projects, job descriptions, and even major functions across the organization like “volunteers”, “giving”, or “the assimilation process”. 

There are two reason I think you should begin implementing a Responsibility Matrix:

You will be helping the organization get better. Every project you apply this to will experience less friction, and will encounter less inaccuracies. That could mean a lot of different things in your context, but less friction and more accuracy is a win no matter what you are doing.You will be gaining experience at managing projects well when you do move up. 

The other great thing about a Responsibility Matrix is that you can implement it simply by behaving differently.

When I began doing this, I was worried that people would be frustrated. Quite the opposite. Everyone was thrilled at how much easier project went along.