Involvement Levels

Sometimes, existing tools and frameworks won’t solve the problem that’s in front of you.

A while back, I was working with a coaching client¹ that needed to clarify involvement of various folks in their projects. The first tool most people reach for in that situation is RACI.

If you’ve spent much time in projects in the corporate world, you’ve probably bumped into RACI. RACI is a tool for identifying participation in a project. Sorry. RACI is the go-to tool for identifying participation in a project.

The letters stand for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed.

I don’t like it much. It often creates more confusion than clarity.² To be fair, I think the C and I parts are reasonably clear. So that leaves half the model as confusing and somewhat broken.

That’s an issue if you’re actively involved in the project—not just “consulted” or “informed”. The model doesn’t clarify your role, your authority, or your involvement, unless you own it. And if you own it, you already know.

There are some alternative models (RASCI, DACI, and CAIRO) that expand or fix parts of RACI. They also suffer from similar issues.

And it was pretty clear that RACI and friends were not the right solution for my client. Neither were a bunch of other existing frameworks.

And so, instead of trying to use a not-quite-right tool to solve a complex and nuanced problem, I came up with a framework. Only later did I realize that the framework is probably useful to other folks, not just he one client.

And so, in this post, I’m sharing part of the framework I developed for them.³ This piece of the framework is a useful model on its own.

I like it better than RACI.

It’s better at capturing the nuances of how much “skin in the game”⁴ each person has.

I hope you will like it too, and find it useful.

The Involvement Levels Model

This model specifies the level of involvement a person has in a project. It has hints of decision-making authority, but mostly quantifies how deeply an individual is involved.

Level	Description of Level	How Many on a Typical Project?
Owner	You own the project. Decisions are yours. The buck stops with you. It’s possible you might do nothing in practice if you’ve delegated, but it’s your baby.	There should be exactly one Owner.
Steward	You don’t own the project, but you act in place of the owner to make it all happen. You make decisions on behalf of the owner, you shape the project, you give instructions. There is not always a Steward, but if the owner has delegated large amounts of responsibility, it’s likely someone is the Steward.	There should be zero, one, or (occasionally) more Stewards. If there’s more than one, the area of stewardship should be clearly defined (e.g., visual design, software engineering, marketing strategy). Multiple Stewards is a yellow flag that decision-making is unclear.
Cog	Your job is to make things happen. You’re a worker bee. You own decisions in your area of responsibility,5 and might have a lot of latitude in how you carry out your work. You might make energetic, creative contributions—but you know you can be overruled. You’re essential.	Zero or more. If you’re going through the trouble to work out levels, you’ll typically have at least one, and probably more.6
Dabbler	You’re involved a bit, every now and then. Maybe your involvement is scheduled, like weekly checkins, or maybe you’re pulled in as needed. You might even have key knowledge. But you’re not putting a lot of time into this project, your presence shouldn’t be counted on, and you’re certainly not part of the core team.7	Zero or more
Bystander	You’re not involved. You might keep an eye on the project, or even be on standby in case you’re needed, but you have no responsibilities on the project. You might not even stay informed—you might be completely uninvolved and unaware. As a Bystander, that’s fine!	Zero or more

This model seeks to be clear about how much skin someone has in the game—time, risk, responsibility, investment—that’s what makes it useful. It’s also hierarchical without being confusing. And, except for the Owner level, it doesn’t blend decision-making authority, amount of involvement, and mode of involvement.

Whether it’s evaluating involvement for a single person, or for an entire project, it gives a clear view.

To see how it works in practice, we’ll look at two examples.

House-Building Example

Alan is building a house.⁸ He’s hired Bob as his general contractor. Bob has found a few tradespeople (Charlie, Derek, and Ed) to do the work. Bob also has a buddy in the city inspector’s office that he’ll sometimes ask questions of (Frankie), a horticulturist for planning out the garden (Gene), and a nephew that likes watching construction (Harry). Alan’s new neighbor will be Irene.

Level	People
Owner	Alan
Steward	Bob
Cogs	Charlie, Derek, Ed
Dabblers	Frankie, Gene
Bystanders	Harry, Irene

Hopefully, this is straightforward enough.

Alan owns the project. He’s the final decision-maker.

Bob makes most of the on-the-ground decisions, directs and schedules the work, makes sure everything is done to Alan’s standards—and the standards Alan would have if he were a construction expert.

Charlie, Derek, and Ed do the work. They’re on-site every day, swinging hammers and installing plumbing. Vital, trusted professionals.

Frankie and Gene do a bit here and there. They’ll answer questions or draw up plans. But they don’t show up at the job site. The tradespeople don’t even know Frankie or Gene exist. They just dabble.

Harry and Irene get to spectate. If Harry’s lucky, Bob lets him carry a toolbox or a clipboard. But neither Harry nor Irene contributes toward the project.

Corporate Example

Vice President Violet has started a department-wide initiative. Director Don is driving most of the work and keeping things organized. Managers Michelle, Mike, and Mukesh (plus their teams) are doing most of the work. When needed, they pull in some help from Lawyer Leonard and Consultant Carol. It has some implications for finance, so Accountant Adam checks in on the project sometimes—and if non-compliances are detected he’ll go running to Violet and the CFO. Employee Erwin is super-excited about this project, but he’s focused on a different initiative and has been told to keep focused.

Level	People
Owner	Violet
Steward	Don
Cogs	Michelle, Mike, Mukesh (plus teams)
Dabblers	Leonard, Carol, Adam
Bystander	Erwin

This doesn’t answer all the questions about the project, but it does answer questions about authority (within the project) and amount of time someone is likely to have allocated.

It also makes it clear that Erwin isn’t involved, despite his enthusiasm.⁹

RACI Comparison for the Corporate Example

This section is really a tangent. If you have strong feelings one way or the other about RACI, it’s useful. If you don’t, skip it.

Let’s lay that corporate example out in RACI for comparison.

Level	People
Responsible	Don, Michelle, Mike, Mukesh
Accountable	Violet
Consulted	Leonard, Carol
Informed	Adam

I’m actually not sure that’s right for RACI.

You see, Leonard and Carol are sometimes consulted—but they also contribute small key pieces of work product to the initiative. Should they be listed under Responsible?

Adam’s informed of things. Although, in this scenario, he comes asking for information; he’s more of an inspector. If he finds something wrong, he’ll offer his opinion (should he be Consulted?). He also has some veto power through his influence with Violet and the CFO. “Informed” obscures a lot of that. True, that isn’t explicit in the Involvement Levels table (which mostly shows he’s not spending a lot of time or energy on this initiative), but at least Dabbler isn’t misleading in the way Informed is.

Is Violet really the right name to put under Accountable? She’s the single owner, so yes. But in terms of day-to-day coordination and decision-making, it’s Don. Listing Violet as Accountable hides the need to go to Don for most decisions.

Don’s name comes first in the Responsible category, suggesting he might be different on thsi project, but that’s just the alphabet working out usefully. Unless you assume that lexical coincidences are meaningful, you’d read this to say Don is involved at the same level as Michelle, Mike, and Mukesh—which isn’t true.

Should Erwin be listed on the matrix, maybe as Informed? Seems like he shouldn’t be, because he’s been told to keep focused.

Heck, I’m confused about this project that I made up after doing the RACI matrix.

Note for DACI fans: DACI gets just as confusing for this project, because Violet (A) and Don (D) are clear, but our managers, lawyers, and consultants are all (C)s. And we still have the same confusion about Adam.

Wrapping Up, and What’s Next

This model obviously doesn’t answer every question someone might have about involvement on a project, but it’s a useful clarification tool. So the next time you’d reach for a RACI matrix, give Involvement Levels a try instead. Put the two next to each other, and see which one gives a better feel for the who’s-doing-what of the project.

I mentioned this was “part of a framework”—and it’s true. It’s not the whole framework. I have another post coming about other parts of the model. Sneak preview: it’ll be “affinity” for the task or project, which can then be used along with involvement to gauge fit or burnout potential.¹⁰

Feedback on this would be excellent! What do you think? Is this useful? Misleading? Confusing?

1. Did you know I’m a coach? Want to help make yourself or your organization more effective? I can help! [↩]
2. Don’t get me started on how many hours I’ve seen wasted in attempts to even understand the model, and trying to work out whether the owner is Responsible or Accountable. (Classic RACI has the owner as Accountable, or even Approver.) [↩]
3. I’ll share other parts of the framework in future posts. Some early feedback I got from my email list (join below!) showed me that jumping straight to the full framework could get confusing. It wasn’t clear how to use it or where to start. So we’ll start with a smaller, useful portion. [↩]
4. “When you got skin in the game / you stay in the game / but you don’t get to win / ‘less you play in the game” – The Room Where it Happens from Hamilton [↩]
5. Do I use a paper clip or staple? Do I restock the green beans or the creamed corn first? Do I use SQL Server or Postgres? [↩]
6. After all, if the only person on the project is the Owner, they’re probably not writing down involvement levels. They’re hopefully just doing the work! [↩]
7. Individuals that are listed as “Consulted” or “Informed” in RACI probably fit here. [↩]
8. It’s an interesting quirk of language use how the phrase “building a house” often means “paying someone else to build a house”. [↩]
9. Sorry, Erwin! [↩]
10. In a way, it’s like Working Genius in that it has some power to identify good combinations of person + work. Or combinations that drain the person’s will to live. [↩]