Never Be Confused About Who’s on First, What’s on Second
One of the quickest ways to tangle up the execution of a project is to be uncertain about who is responsible for what, who has sign off authority, who must be consulted, and who should be informed.
Too often teams roll along, make progress, then have to double back and rework when they figure out that they missed approvals. At other times, people who have no right to stop progress act like they have sign off rights, but in fact don’t.
Use RACI, a responsibility assignment matrix as a model to manage this dynamic. RACI stands for “responsible, accountable, consulted, informed”. Read more about it at this link.
Robert Sher is founding principal of CEO to CEO, a consulting firm of former chief executives that improves the leadership infrastructure of midsized companies seeking to accelerate their performance. He was chief executive of Bentley Publishing Group from 1984 to 2006 and steered the firm to become a leading player in its industry (decorative art publishing).