A responsibility assignment matrix that defines roles and responsibilities using four key designations - Responsible (those who do the work), Accountable (the ultimate decision maker), Consulted (those whose input is needed), and Informed (those who need to be kept updated). RACI matrices help clarify ownership, reduce confusion, and improve project coordination by mapping stakeholders to specific tasks or deliverables.
RACI
RACI is a responsibility assignment matrix that maps every task or deliverable to four roles - Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed - so that ownership is explicit and unambiguous. It is a lightweight management convention rather than a formal specification, but it has become a common shorthand for answering the question every project eventually asks: who actually owns this? Laid out as a simple grid of tasks against people, it makes gaps and overlaps in ownership visible at a glance.
- Responsible - The people who do the work to complete the task.
- Accountable - The single owner ultimately answerable for the outcome, ideally one name per row.
- Consulted - Those whose input is sought before a decision, in two-way dialogue.
- Informed - Those kept up to date on progress or decisions, in one-way communication.
In API operations RACI is a practical tool for governance, where the hard problems are rarely technical and almost always about ownership. Mapping standards, style guides, security reviews, and lifecycle stages to accountable owners turns an abstract governance policy into named responsibilities that people can be held to. When an API estate spans dozens of teams, a clear RACI is often what separates a governance program that sticks from a document nobody follows.
