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Action Management: Ownership

The "Who" Question. If the ownership of an action is not defined, then that action has little chance of being completed. Whose toes do you hold to the fire? Who do you ask for progress reports? But who is the right person to own the task - sometimes this is not so obvious.

The Right Owner

The owner of the task could be the person who has both the greatest interest in seeing the action completed or the person who has greatest capability to complete it.

The latter of the two is usually the right answer (but is not the complete answer). The person who has greatest capability to complete is in the best place to determine how and when the task can be completed - and so the probability of success is improved.

The person who has greatest interest in seeing the action completed also has a role however and for that it is best to refer to what is known as the “RACI” model.


The RACI Model

RACI is an acronym from Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed.

  1. Accountable: The buck stops here. This is the person everyone will look to for completion of the task and whose reputation is at stake. This is therefore the person that needs to ensure adequate resources and priority are given to completing the task. There can be only one person accountable.
  2. Responsible: This is the person that actually does the work. If the action has been broken down into a work breakdown structure (WBS) then there may be different people responsible for different elements of the task.
  3. Consulted: These people must be consulted in finalising the action - as they have important requirements.
  4. Informed: These people must be informed of the resulting action - as they are dependent upon its results.


Ownership Delegation

It is important to know that Accountability cannot be delegated, whereas Responsibility can be.

The only way to move Accountability to another person is by full 360° agreement amongst those involved.

Responsibility can be delegated many times and only needs the agreement of the person being delegated to. 

Note however that the Accountable person always retains the overall accountability for the task, regardless of those responsibilities that are delegated.