The RACI Matrix Puzzle: Who’s Responsible, Accountable, Confused, and Ignored?

Greetings, fellow sufferers of governance!

This week on Enterprise Architecture: The Struggle is Real, we enter the RACI Matrix, where clarity goes to die and roles become Schrödinger's job descriptions — simultaneously owned by everyone and no one.

The Scenario: Mission Unclear

It began, as all corporate tragedies do, with an urgent initiative:
"We need to launch the Digital Banana Platform by Q3."

Project teams assembled, PowerPoints flew, and then someone — probably a consultant named “Jade” — asked, “Who’s accountable for this?”

Cue the chaos:

• The Product Owner said they were responsible — but only for "the vision, not the details."

• The PM claimed accountability — but not responsibility, because they "don’t do deliverables."

• The EA was "consulted" — extensively — but never invited to the meetings where decisions were made.

• And the Dev Lead? "Informed," apparently, by reading about it in a Slack thread three weeks too late.

The RACI matrix had 4 columns and 17 rows of polite finger-pointing.
No one understood it. Everyone approved it.

TOGAF: The Grown-Up at the Table

Here comes TOGAF, coffee in hand, rolling its eyes so hard it creates a mild breeze.

TOGAF recommends clarity via Architecture Contracts, Accountability Chains, and Role-Driven Views — not a spreadsheet of acronyms tossed like confetti.

Educational Twist: RACI Done Right (with TOGAF-ish Sanity)

• Start with the Capability Map — identify what needs to happen, then who owns each capability.

• Use the Organization Map + Role Catalog to define real-world responsibilities.

• Don’t skip Architecture Contracts — they formalize decision rights before things derail.

Humor in Diagrams

Share Your RACI Woes

Have your own role-responsibility horror story?
Was your entire team once marked “Consulted” but no one “Informed”?
Drop us a note or meme it into existence.

Next Week’s Tease

“The Capability Catalog Nobody Reads (Until It’s Too Late)”
Spoiler: It’s like IKEA instructions, but with more existential dread.