By Camille O'Connor, RACI Solutions
One of the great things about RACI is its versatility. While we love the classic RACI Template at RACI Solutions, viewing the same information from a new angle can sometimes be beneficial. That’s why we also teach the “Assigning Roles RACI Template,” which offers an alternative view. This version flips the classic RACI matrix on its head by listing the RACI roles along the x-axis, leaving you to fill in the chart with the names of colleagues or position titles.
Viewing the same information in a new way is so useful because it allows different things to jump out. Both templates have their strengths, which to choose just depends on what you’re hoping to accomplish.
The Classic template that we are used to allows you to read a person’s position or role vertically, making it easy to quickly understand what they do. Their name is at the top of the column, with their assignments listed underneath. Because of this, the distribution of RACI roles can be easily identified, and positions can be examined holistically: 
- If someone has mostly C’s: Does this person need to come to every meeting?
- Mostly A’s: Can this person delegate some of their decisions to prevent a “bottleneck”?
- Mostly R’s: Is this person feeling overloaded with work? Perhaps they can give away some R’s.
On the other hand, the Assigning Roles template is more user-friendly because the chart is filled in with names rather than the RACI codes. It’s task-oriented rather than role-oriented, and because of this, it’s useful in meetings to develop next steps. It also includes a column for the tasks' deadlines – a feature missing from the Classic template. Click the link below to download the Assigning Roles template and try it for yourself!
