[Music] welcome again to racy 101 today we are going to take a closer look at the racy model firstly a bit of an introduction to roles and responsibilities good employee engagement starts with a clear and defined job description if the job description isn't explained clearly if the requirements are constantly changing and difficult to understand or if expectations are unclear workers are at a higher risk of job dissatisfaction and productivity loss a role is not the same thing as a person a role is a description of a whole group of activities or tasks that a person
in that role is expected to be able to carry out and hopefully the right person can step into that role now accountable and responsible are very different responsible typically means that someone is performing a task or activity whereas accountable is the decision maker this is where the buck stops and it's their head that is on the chopping block if things go wrong [Music] accountabilities can't be relegated whereas responsibilities can be providing permission from the accountable person is given agile organizations can make decisions quickly that is only possible with clear role descriptions so to operate efficiently
and get things done everyone needs to know who is the a accountable who is the are responsible and who needs to be consulted and informed that's something that needs to be in place if you want to become an effective organization that is able to decide quickly and act on what needs to be done now for the racy model so accountable means this is where the buck stops responsible is where things get done consulted this is where we need to ask others before proceeding and informed is who we let know after all is done and dusted
so racy is an acronym which stands for responsible accountable consulted and informed so it's time to have fun the idea behind racy is to create a racy matrix or chart this is where you map your tasks or activities against the roles the activities go down the left side of the chart and the roles are across the top of the chart to make it more interesting we will fill it in relative to the current situation and then change it to the ideal situation then you fill in your various a's and r's and all the cells so
you know exactly who is accountable who's responsible you know exactly who will be consulted and who needs to be informed for the various activities making sense now let this chart sink in a minute the amount of tasks that mums are capable of doing at the same time is one of the greatest mysteries in the world now dad and kids are helping mom with meals mom make sure the shopping is done dad does it but mom consults with the kids as to what is on the shopping list mom seems to be accountable for the most things
around the house but at least now everyone knows they play a part in carrying out the tasks to make sure no one forgets their tasks print off the racy and stick it on the fridge as a reminder racy can be used for any project or business on any size from a family to a business with over five hundred thousand employees it's all about identifying who does what in my organization or my environment so how do you build a racy chart well there is actually a great procedure in place first of all identify all the required
tasks and activities then identify the roles so who should be doing or who should be performing all of these tasks then assign the racy codes who will be responsible accountable consulted and who will be informed of course this is a collaborative process then identify where the gaps or overlaps are you can only have one a per task maybe you don't have any rs for a task or too many r's c's and i's meaning so many people are involved that the task may never be completed so make your improvements as a team and get agreement again
going through a collaborative process and then finally you want to make sure the roles are following the responsibilities or the roles of performing the tasks they're responsible accountable and so on for then ensure the racy is being followed that's how you build a racy chart an analysis you should perform on your racy chart is to see if we have more than one a more than one person accountable sorry that is not possible only one role per task can be accountable you can't have more than one person driving the bus no a's this is also not
possible as you need at least one driver on the bus for each activity to be performed if you've got heaps and heaps of r's for one activity you may want to ask yourself the question do we have too many roles responsible here if you've got no r's for an activity it won't get done if you've got too many cs allocated to a task you may be confronted by paralysis by analysis no c's and no eyes on your chart could be a sign of not having enough communication within the teams so it's a really good idea
to analyze who's doing what walking the talk the racy model if written and not practiced is just a piece of paper racy creates efficiencies when used and organizations the size of tesco in the uk with over 500 000 employees have used racy to assist all staff in understanding their role in a very large organization so whether at work or at home there is a place for racy in everyone's world find out more about the world of racy and project management at www.racy101.com [Music]
