Responsibility Assignment Matrix To The Rescue
Today, I received an inquiry from one of my podcast listeners. He described the following issue on one of his projects:
I recently joined a new company as Project Manager/Portfolio Analyst. I report to two different individuals under each title with my Portfolio Analyst boss as my true manager in HR terms. He (a Manager) has told me that under my PM title I am on my own with the VP I report to. Shocking but I accepted.
The VP recently assigned me a new project; however, I've noticed that he continues to do work on the project when I am still in the initiation/planning phase. I've had discussions with him about whether he truly wants me to manage this project, and receive the answer yes each time. However, he still continues to do work on the project such as vendor evaulation/selection and have not included me in on his vendor meetings with his staff? He is extermely unresponsive to my emails at times and when he responds its with very little information. Meetings with him has been the same
Here is what I wrote back to my listener:
The situation that you are seeing is not unusual if you are working in a matrix organization where you have very strong line managers working on your project. Even though they tell you that "you have the power" there is a tendency that this is forgotten in the day to day activities. But I think I have a solution for you:
The Responsibility Assignment Matrix - also known as the RACI chart.
Basically, a RAM is nothing but a simple table that you can create in Word or Excel. Down the left side you will list the activities on the project and across the top you will list the names of the project team members. Now it is an easy thing to fill in this table and assign the following responsibilities to each person for the various activities:
- R for Responsible
- A for Accountable
- C for Consulting
- I for Informed
And that's also where the RACI chart comes from. It's the 4 letters that you use. Of course, you can use additional ones like T for Test or B for Backup. This depends on your project needs.
Armed with this RAM / RACI chart I recommend that you walk into the VP's office and seek a friendly conversation. It will allow the two of you define exactly who on the project team is responsible, accountable, consulting or has information needs for each of the activities. (If you want to add some humor, then go ahead and add the task "Micromanagement" to the activities on the left. The first time I did this, my boss almost fell out of his chair from laughing. But he got the point, too... :-)
The RAM/RACI chart will help you set the boundaries for responsibility. But there is of course no 100% guarantee that it will work. It depends on your VP. But it's worth a try.
What do you think... will this work for him considering that his boss is often "unresponsive"? What other suggestions can we come up with?