People and Operating Model
RACI and Ownership
Ownership must be explicit before production responsibility can be safe. Use RACI sparingly to clarify decisions, not to create process theater.
Ownership records
Every important system should identify:
- Accountable owner.
- Technical owner.
- Business owner.
- On-call or support owner.
- Security or compliance partner.
- Escalation path.
RACI roles
| Role | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Responsible | Does the work. |
| Accountable | Owns the outcome and final decision. |
| Consulted | Provides input before the decision. |
| Informed | Needs to know the result. |
Common decisions
Define ownership for:
- Runtime platform selection.
- Production launch approval.
- Security exception acceptance.
- Incident severity declaration.
- Rollback decision.
- Vendor selection.
- Cost budget escalation.
- Decommissioning approval.
Decision record
Watchouts
- Shared ownership often means no ownership.
- The accountable person needs authority, not only responsibility.
- RACI should be reviewed when teams or systems change.
- Long RACI tables that nobody uses are worse than a clear owner list.