Accountability System.
WS08 is the program RACI — Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed — applied to every activity in the strategy slices from WS07. Its paired worksheet, WS09 Decision Hierarchy, answers the "who decides?" half of governance.
Purpose
RACI gets a bad reputation when it's filled in as wishful thinking. Done well, it pre-answers accountability questions that otherwise surface during incidents: who owns this? who can I escalate to? who should have been told about that change? WS08 makes those answers explicit up front.
Rules
- Exactly one Accountable per activity. Two A's is no A.
- R and A can be the same person. Often are, on small programs.
- C is two-way consultation — expected to provide input. Not the same as Informed.
- I is one-way notification — needs to know; doesn't need to respond.
- Named people, not roles. "Engineering" is not an entry. "Jane Chen, Eng lead" is.
Template
| Activity | R | A | C | I |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approve requirements changes | PM | Product owner | Eng lead, QA lead | Affected users |
| Run UAT | QA lead | PM | Eng lead | Business owner |
| Deploy to production | Eng lead | Tech lead | Ops, SRE | Everyone on the roster |
Example rows only — your program's activities come from WS07 Strategy Table.