25  RACI, DACI and Issues

Author
Affiliation

Dr Randy Johnson

Hood College

Published

October 28, 2025

These exercises will help reinforce principles discussed in this week’s communications and stakeholder discussion.

Acknowledgements

Gemini was used for brainstorming on scenarios for these exercises.

RACI

Fill in the roles for each individual with respect to the listed tasks.

  • Responsible: The individual who will do the work
  • Accountable: The project owner and delegator of work
  • Consulted: SMEs and some stakeholders
  • Informed: Anyone who should be updated on project status
Project Task / Deliverable Project Manager Technical Lead Software Engineer Project Sponsor Business Analyst Quality Assurance (QA)
Project Scope Documentation
Design System Architecture
Code Development
Budget Management
Test and Validate Deliverable
Communicate Weekly Status

DACI

Fill in the roles for each individual with respect to the listed decisions.

  • Driver: Project owner who coordinates the work
  • Approver: Individual with final approval authority (fewer is better - too many approvers causes inefficiencies and confusion)
  • Contributor: Individuals who provide input to help guide decisions
  • Informed: Anyone who should be updated on decisions
Project Decision Point Project Manager Technical Lead Software Engineer Project Sponsor Business Analyst Quality Assurance (QA)
Select Core Programming Language
Approve Feature Release Schedule
Finalize Budget Allocation
Choose Third-Party Vendors
Decide on Critical Bug Fix Priority
Sign off on Project Launch Readiness

Issues

Review the following issues and discuss appropriate approaches for each audience. After discussing as a group have each team member pick an audience for the group. The team member will then present the issue to the group.

Issue 1: Unexpected Security Vulnerability in a Core Library

Audience What they need to know Key Talking Points
Technical Audience
Project Owner
Key Stakeholders

Issue 2: Key Technical Lead Resigns Mid-Sprint

Audience What they need to know Key Talking Points
Technical Audience
Project Owner
Key Stakeholders

Issue 3: Scope Creep Due to Unexpected Regulatory Change

Audience What they need to know Key Talking Points
Technical Audience
Project Owner
Key Stakeholders

Issue 4: System Performance Degradation After Deployment

Audience What they need to know Key Talking Points
Technical Audience
Project Owner
Key Stakeholders

Issue 5: Vendor Delay on a Critical Third-Party Service

Audience What they need to know Key Talking Points
Technical Audience
Project Owner
Key Stakeholders