A
Axtio
Ideas

RACI is too heavy for small teams. Ask "who has the ball?" instead.

A
Axtio Team
October 4, 2026 ยท 5 min read

RACI is one of the most widely taught project management tools. For each task or decision, you mark who is Responsible (does the work), Accountable (owns the outcome), Consulted (gives input) and Informed (kept up to date). Large projects with many stakeholders use RACI charts to prevent confusion about roles.

For a small team, RACI often creates more work than it saves.

Where RACI helps

  • Projects with many departments or external parties
  • Situations with real ambiguity about who decides
  • Regulated work where responsibilities must be documented
  • Large changes where people need to know who to involve

In those settings, a RACI chart drawn once at the start of a project can prevent weeks of confusion.

Where it struggles

  • It is static. A chart drawn at kickoff does not change as the work moves, so it quickly stops describing reality.
  • It is per task. Filling in four roles for every task is tedious, so people stop doing it.
  • It describes roles, not state. It says who is responsible in general, not who has to act right now.
  • Small teams already know who is consulted and informed, because everyone is.

The question that does most of the work

In a small team, the most useful question about any piece of work is: who has the ball right now? That is, whose move is it?

  • If it is mine, I need to act
  • If it is someone else's, I am waiting, and I may need to chase
  • If it is nobody's, it is stuck, and that is the problem to fix

Unlike RACI, this changes as the work moves, and it is the question people actually ask each other every day. See the who-has-the-ball framework.

Keep "accountable" for projects

The one RACI idea worth keeping is the single accountable owner for each project. Not for each task: for each project. That person makes sure the ball never sits still for long. See the single-threaded owner.

How it looks on a board

On a 2D board, rows are projects with an owner, and columns show where the ball is for each action: Mine, Other (with the person's name), Next Steps and Done. Axtio adds the age of anything waiting in Other and flags it after a week. That gives a small team most of what RACI promises, with no chart to maintain.

When to use both

If you are a small team inside a larger organisation, use RACI for the cross-department project kickoff, and a who-has-the-ball board for the day-to-day. The chart sets expectations; the board shows reality. See team accountability without micromanagement.