Our RACI matrix template is one Excel sheet with the roles, the dropdowns and the key already set up. Add your task list and it is ready to take into a room. It is free, and there is no signup or email gate.
Download the RACI matrix template (Excel .xlsx)
A RACI matrix records who is Responsible for each piece of work, who is Accountable for it, who should be Consulted, and who is kept Informed. It exists to settle those four questions in one place, before the project has to settle them under pressure. For the full explanation, with worked examples and the case against using one, read our RACI matrix guide.
What is in the file
One sheet, called RACI Matrix. Column A holds a worked example task list, seventeen rows deep. Clear the example text and drop in your own tasks.
Eight role columns are already labelled: Project Sponsor, PMO Lead, Project Manager, Business Analyst, IT Lead, Finance, Legal and Comms. Overwrite any of them with the role titles your organisation actually uses.
Every cell in the grid carries a dropdown, so you pick a code rather than typing it: R, A, C, I, A/R for a combined accountable-and-responsible role, or R/C for a combined responsible-and-consulted role.
The grid colours itself as you fill it. Each of the six codes, R, A, C, I, A/R and R/C, takes its own fill colour, so the shape of the RACI chart is readable across the room in a workshop.
The header row is frozen, so the role names stay in view as you scroll down a long task list. Rows 29 to 34 hold the key, with a one-line definition of each code, including the dual A/R entry. Leave it in place if the sheet is going to people who do not use RACI every week.
There are no macros in the file, so it opens in locked-down corporate builds. It does carry a handful of formulas now: a check column flags any row missing an A or carrying two, and two summary rows total the A and R load per role. The HotPMO branding sits in the title band at the top and you are welcome to overwrite it with your own.
How to fill it in
- List your tasks in column A. Keep them at the level a status meeting would recognise, roughly one row per deliverable or decision.
- Replace the role headings in row 7 with the roles on your project. Use role titles rather than people’s names, so the sheet survives a change of staff.
- Work across one row at a time and assign exactly one A. If two people are accountable for the same task, nobody is.
- Add the R, then add C and I sparingly. A row with six consultees is a row that will move slowly.
- Read down the columns. A column carrying an A in most rows is a bottleneck. A column with almost nothing in it is a role that does not need to be in the matrix at all.
- Take the draft to the people named in it and get their agreement before it goes any further.
When a RACI matrix is the wrong tool
A RACI matrix assumes a stable set of roles and a task list that holds still long enough to be worth writing down. On a team of four where everyone does everything, it records what the team already knows and adds a maintenance job nobody wants. On work that re-plans every fortnight, a matrix drawn at kick-off is stale by the second sprint, and teams quietly stop updating it rather than say so. It also describes who does the work while staying silent on who decides. Where the live argument on a project is about decision rights, a decision log or a DACI chart will get you further than another pass at the RACI.
More free PMO templates
The rest of our free set is on the PMO templates page, including the risk log and the project charter. If your PMO needs the whole library rather than one sheet at a time, the PMO Vault inside the PMO Success Hub holds the full set of templates, process flows and worked examples.
