RACI Matrix Template

RACI matrix is one of the ITSM process collateral used for ITSM stakeholders to define and demarcate the roles and responsibilities in an ITSM process.

RACI matrix stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.

• The role that is tagged as Responsible in the RACI matrix will perform the task/ tasks.
• The role tagged as Accountable in the RACI matrix will have complete authority, make decisions, and be answerable for the success or failure of the task.
• The role tagged as Consulted in the RACI matrix will be like a subject matter expert who will be approached for recommendations and feedback.
• The role tagged as Informed in the RACI matrix will be a stakeholder who should be communicated about the actions taken in performing the specific task.

Lack of matrix in ITSM operations will lead to ambiguity in performing respective duties, blame games, and confusion at their work activities.

Roles and Responsibilities Template for Change Management

Generic roles in change management are change manager, change analyst, and CAB (Change advisory board).

Change Manager

• Maintaining change management system, including policies, processes, systems, metrics, and procedures used across the entire IT business and adheres to all regulatory requirements.
• Research & proactively identify opportunities to process, measurements, and systems to improve change management services' effectiveness and efficiency.
• Work closely and communicate effectively with users and stakeholders of the change process to drive the improvements.
• Assure service quality objectives, governance compliance, and responsiveness through KPIs and metrics.
• Attends all CAB meetings.
• Support the development and execution of change management activities in partnership with customer teams - including stakeholder engagement, communication, training, and readiness and adoption measurement plans.
• Collaborate with the team and key stakeholders to ensure timely delivery and quality of assigned deliverables.
• Identify possible issues/concerns, escalate risks and issues to management and project leadership teams, and implement mitigation plans if necessary.
• Identify training needs by analysis of common errors.
• Keep the customers and internal stakeholders up to date on high priority changes through timely and regular written and verbal communications.
• Review the business case of all RFCs/change requests and formulate a plan of action for handling the change based on the area of expertise/responsibility.
• Ensure change management documentation is updated.
• Gather and analyze information on a variety of changes and develop action plans to contain and control incidents.
• Liaison with internal training and communications staff to produce user guidance and bulletins explaining best practices and joint issues.
• Provide information and reports on change implementations, successful changes, and failed changes.
• Verify implemented changes.
• Conduct PIR on successful and failed changes and conduct RCA.

Change Analyst

• Register, categorize and prioritize changes after conducting a thorough analysis.
• Conduct risk analysis before submitting it for CAB approval
• Facilitate CAB meetings
• Maintain a balance between the business need for prompt change and the necessity of ensuring that existing systems' stability is not compromised.
• Document and publish the CAB - MOM (Minutes of the meetings)
• Reroute misdirected changes that have not been handled promptly
• Identify changes that need special attention or escalation.
• Ensure change report is created immediately after successful implementation
• Draft and send out communications to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are aware of procedures
• Work with change management to ensure change activities are properly communicated.
• Ensure change implementers are adhering to the process and procedures as defined

CAB

• Responsible for making decisions on whether or not the RFC would bring positive results, value to the organization, reduce the manual efforts, and reduce the costs.
• Approve changes/reject the changes based on:
  1. the risk to IT services and business services
  2. impact of a difference on availability, performance, security, compliance, and SLAs
  3. provision of procedures
  4. test plans defined
  5. test results gathered
• Ensure that the change is planned well and is equipped with all functions to test and implement.
• Review the implemented changes
• Discuss previously failed, rolled back, and backed out changes to understand what went wrong
• Participating in CAB meetings
• Authority to represent a particular group or function
• Preparing for CAB meetings by circulating RFCs within their own group and coordinating feedback
• Reviewing RFCs and recommending whether they should be authorized
• Reviewing successful and failed changes
• Reviewing unauthorized changes
• Reviewing the change schedule and providing information to help identify conflicts or resource issues
• Reviewing the projected service outage and providing feedback on the impact of planned outages.

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How to implement a RACI matrix

1. First, define the process, which will be a sequence of activities that will result in a specific outcome with some roles and capabilities. You need to determine the various parts needed for the process like change manager, change implementer, CAB, etc.
2. Second, Identify the sequence of activities in a lifecycle-based approach. For example: Raise change request, Categorize the change request, Assess the change request, etc.
3. Third, Identify the decisions in every activity. For example: Approve the test plan, Approve the rollback plan, etc.
4. Fourth, every defined activity and decision should be tagged to a specific role.
5. Fifth, define the matrix with columns and rows. Naming the first column heading as ‘Activity,’ and below it (that is Activity column) describe the various activities in a sequenced order. Define the other column headings with the respective roles defined in the process.
6. Finally, populate the information ‘R,’ ‘A,’ ‘C,’ ‘I’ in the rows and columns, ensuring there is:
   • One and only one ‘A’ (i.e., accountable role) for a specific task
   • Every task should have one ‘R’ and can also have many ‘R’s (i.e., responsible roles) based on the task.
   • Lastly, tasks can have one or more ‘C’s (i.e., consulting roles) and ‘I’’s (i.e., informed roles) based on the task.