RACI Matrix Builder

Most project delays are not about skill but about ownership: two people do the same thing, or everyone assumes someone else will. A RACI matrix puts names against tasks using four letters. R is Responsible, the person who does the work. A is Accountable, the one who answers for the result and has the final say. C is Consulted, a two-way conversation before a decision. I is Informed, told afterwards. This builder checks the matrix against the usual rules as you fill it in.

Building the grid

Type roles or people, one per line, up to 12, and tasks or deliverables, one per line, up to 40. A grid appears with one row per task and one column per role. Each cell has a drop-down: blank, R, A, A/R, C or I. A/R means the same person does the work and answers for it, which is common for small tasks. Press Sample for a worked example, or Clear to start again. The grid keeps your choices when you add or remove a line.

The rule checks

Above the grid and below the notes, messages appear as soon as a rule is broken. Each task needs exactly one Accountable person, counting A and A/R: none and two or more are errors. Each task needs at least one Responsible, counting R and A/R, and zero is an error. A task with more than three people Responsible gets a warning, and so does one with more than three Consulted, since too many cooks slow a decision. A role that appears in no task is flagged as idle, and, for matrices with four or more tasks, a role Accountable for more than 60% of them is flagged as a possible bottleneck. When everything passes, a message says so.

Workload by role

A table counts, for each role, the tasks where they are Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed. It shows at a glance who is overloaded and who is hardly involved, which is a useful conversation to have before work starts.

Exports

“Copy as Markdown table” puts a table on the clipboard with a legend, ready for a wiki or a document, with A/R written as A/R and blanks as a dash. “Download CSV” saves a file with a header row of Task and the role names and one row per task. Roles, tasks and cells are saved in this browser so a reload does not lose them, and nothing is sent anywhere.

A worked example

The sample has five roles (project manager, designer, developer, client, QA lead) and five tasks. The project manager is A/R for writing the brief, Accountable for the designs and for testing, and Responsible for approving and launching. The designer is Responsible for the screens, the developer A/R for building, QA Responsible for testing, and the client Accountable for the final approval. Every task passes the rules, and the workload table shows the project manager as Responsible for 2 tasks, Accountable for 3, Consulted for 1 and Informed for none. If you change the designer’s cell on the first task from C to A, the page shows an error that the task has two Accountable people. The CSV for that task, before the change, reads “Write the project brief,A/R,C,C,C,”.

Getting value

Fill in the matrix with the people involved, not for them. Disagreements about who is Accountable are the point of the exercise. Keep tasks to deliverables and decisions, not every small action. Revisit the matrix when the team or scope changes, and share it where people will see it.

Limits

The checks follow the usual RACI rules, and your organisation may use variants such as RASCI or add a Support role. The tool does not assign people, track progress or send notifications. Large projects may need a tool with more structure than a 40-task grid.

Related tools

• SOP Builder writes down the procedure that a matrix assigns people to.
• OKR Planner & Scorer tracks the goals that the tasks serve.
• Incident Postmortem Builder assigns owners to follow-up actions after something goes wrong.
• Timesheet Generator records the time people spend on assigned work.