Directly Responsible Individuals, Workers, Advisors, Informed — Project Roles

In any project, we should be clear what role each person is playing:

The Directly Responsible Individual can make decisions without being overruled, and is held accountable for the success or failure of the task. If you want to know the status of the project, the DRI is the best person to ask. He can either do the work himself or delegate it.

People can offer their input to the DRI, but the DRI can choose not to even hear someone out. If he does hear someone out, but ultimately decides not to take his input, he need not explain why. The person giving an advice can’t ask the DRI why their input was not taken.

The DRI can be a manager, but again, he can’t evade responsibility if it doesn’t work out. If he’s not okay with that, let someone closer to the work be the DRI. After all, it’s directly responsible individual.

It’s important to explicitly identify and announce who the DRI is, because otherwise, responsibility is diffuse. Which means too much time spent in meetings, you can’t take bold decisions because multiple people need to agree, people don’t learn from mistakes because they don’t consider it their decision (when everyone is responsible, no one is responsible), people stop bothering, and so on.

Workers: This is everyone working on the project other than the DRI. Workers can express opinions, but the DRI can ignore them.

Advisors: These people don’t do the work, merely give advice.

Otherwise you’ll end up with multiple gatekeepers, contradictory requirements being imposed on the people actually doing the work, least-common denominator decisions, the people doing the work focusing on pleasing the gatekeepers rather than what’s right for the user, etc. We want advisors, not gatekeepers.

One situation in which having an advisor can help if when the DRI doesn’t have all the skills needed for the task. In such a situation, should he be made the DRI? If yes, it’s a problem, because how can you hold him accountable for results when you know he doesn’t have the skills needed? If no, someone else will have to be the DRI and that person may have other things on his plate. And people will find it hard to grow if they’re not entrusted with responsibility. In such situations, making him the DRI anyway, and assigning an advisor to cover his blind spots, can be a solution.

Informed: These people are informed of decisions, progress, etc, but not consulted. It’s one-way communication. Differentiating this is important because, as a manager, I sometimes interfered when my input was not solicited, because I confused being informed with being asked my opinion. So informed is not just a role a person plays throughout the project, but it can change from situation to situation, like prefixing a message with FYI or “Just an Update”, as compared to explicitly asking for an opinion or action or question.

In any case, be clear who’s playing what role on a project to streamline the project and empower people.

Footnote:

This is inspired by the RACE matrix.