When we have completed the SIPOC we can begin to conduct the RACI exercise. This exercise allows us to identify the roles and their accompanying responsibilities that they may have for each process step. This acronym stands for:

• Responsible: A role is “Responsible” if they are those who do the work to complete the task. There has to be at least one role that is responsible, although others can be delegated to assist in the required work.
• Accountable: The role who is ultimately answerable for the correct and thorough completion of the deliverable or task, is deemed Accountable. They ensure the prerequisites of the task are met, and delegate the work to those responsible. There must be one, and only one accountable role specified for each task or deliverable.
• Consulted: These are roles whose opinions are sought, typically subject matter experts; and with whom there is two-way communication
• Informed: These folks are kept up-to-date on progress, often only on completion of the task or deliverable; and with whom there is just one-way communication

We need to make a distinction between a role and individually identified people:

• A role is a descriptor of an associated set of tasks that an individual is capable of completing; these may be performed by many people, for example: 
  • Role = scan technician
• Whereas, an individual, is one person that performs a particular role or roles.
  • Individual #1 = scan technician #1
  • Individual #2 = scan technician #2; and maybe conservation technician #4

The RACI can be completed by creating a matrix where the rows are at a minimum the process steps from the SIPOC, but could be augmented with more granular steps.  The RACI can be then be filled out in one of two manners:

• in version 1, the columns represent R-A-C-I and for each process the roles or persons are identified. Each step must have someone responsible (can be multiple) and accountable (can only be one). In this version one can quickly identify who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed, for each step. In this example, we can quickly see that yes, there is one and only one accountable person for each step, while there may be multiple roles/people responsible, consulted or informed
• In version 2, the columns represent the various roles, and could be further broken down by individuals. For each step, one indicates if the role or individual is responsible, accountable, consulted and/or informed. In this version, one can see how a role or an individual’s participation changes throughout the process, and aggregates their responsibilities.

Both versions provide us with valuable insight into the workflow and its processes. Below is an example of each version based upon a hypothetical restaurant visit workflow:

RACI Example

The following real v1 and v2 examples are based upon the aforementioned SIPOC example:

1 = Head of Bibliographic Initiatives: Overall leader of Bibliographic Initiatives

2 = Bibliographic Initiatives Unit Head: either leader of Western Languages Unit or the Non-Roman Languages Unit

3 = "External" to the unit creating the SIPOC (e.g. Metadata Initiatives is "external" to Preservation & Digitization)