DACI

What is DACI?

DACI is a decision-making model that allows teams or whole organizations to assign and show the responsibilities of every team member. This model is derived from the RACI framework and dates back to the 1980s. Like RACI, it has a matrix structure and is effective in clearing up decision confusion. The DACI framework gives a clear picture of who should be involved in making a specific decision and what is expected from them. In this respect, it is most useful in projects where decisions affect multiple teams and business units.

DACI Roles

DACI is an acronym where each letter stands for one of the roles that need to be present in any team that needs to make a decision: 

Driver

The driver is a person who oversees the entire project, typically, a project manager. Drivers are responsible for multiple actions that should drive a decision to a conclusion:

•  Set decision timelines and keep track of the progress;
•  Coordinate with experts;
•  Assign specific tasks;
•  Run project meetings and monitor the documentation process;
•  Manage team members;
•  Select experts (contributors) to consult with and incorporate them into the process;
•  Ensure that the right people make decisions, without making all the decisions themselves;
•  Inform stakeholders and people affected by the decision.

Approver

The approver is someone who makes the final decision without being too engaged into the process. This allows approvers to be more objective in seeing what is best for the project. Sometimes there might be several approvers, but it is crucial to keep their number at a minimum to speed up the process.

Contributor

The contributor is a consultant role that has a say in the decision thanks to their expertise. They share their opinions and vantage points with drivers and approvers to improve the final decision. improve the final decision.

Informed

Informed participants have no direct influence on the decision-making but want to stay updated because the decision might affect their work. These can be teams from other departments that need to plan work and allocate resources depending on other teams’ progress.

Implementing DACI

The DACI framework envisages the following steps to be taken for each decision:

1. Assign a Driver who will be in charge of running the project.
2. Decompose the whole project into separate task levels and assign Approvers and Contributors for each level. If the project is too complex, also assign a Driver for each level.
3. Let the Driver develop the action plan.
4. Tackle each task in the plan with the whole team according to their roles to arrive at the decision point.
5. Let the Approver have the final say.
6. Inform all the stakeholders.

Best Practices of Decision Making

To make sure that the decision-making process is effective, it should be formalized with established criteria and clear steps from identifying the issue through getting feedback and assessment of the decision consequences:

1. Identify the problem or the domain that needs to be changed
2. Establish decision criteria
3. Give the criteria weights
4. Brainstorm to come with alternative decisions.
5. Evaluate each alternative
6. Choose the optimal alternative.
7. Implement the chosen decision.
8. Evaluate the decision consequences.
9. DACI Benefits

The DACI framework increases the effectiveness of decision making in several ways:

• Specific people have authority over and are held responsible of specific aspects of decision making;
• Every such aspect maps to a well-defined role;
• Increased transparency eliminates potential disagreements and confusion;
• Documentation is available to everyone who needs to be updated on the decisions.

DACI is a useful tool to bring the whole team together to move a new product forward. It assigns specific responsibilities to specific team members that results in a higher level of collaborative decision-making and eliminates potential conflicts.