Most people searching for a raci template want to see one filled in, not just explained. So here's a raci template applied to a decision every team has: approving a time-off request. The same four-step task gets run through three different people's heads, and each one produces a matrix that looks reasonable on the surface and breaks down the moment someone tries to act on it.
Key takeaways
- A raci template only works if it has exactly one Accountable owner per row — not zero, not three.
- Making yourself Accountable on every task isn't thoroughness, it's a bottleneck wearing a different name.
- Consulted should be reserved for people whose input actually changes the outcome, not everyone who might feel left out.
- A matrix with no Accountable owner doesn't remove the bottleneck, it just delays it and sends it back to whoever started the process.
The decision: approving a time-off request
Time-off approval is a good test case because it's small, it repeats constantly, and almost nobody has written down who actually decides. It usually breaks into four steps: the employee submits the request, someone checks coverage, someone approves or denies it, and payroll updates the record. Four rows, one decision, and yet three different people will fill out the raci template for this task in three incompatible ways.
Version one: the team lead who thinks they're helping
| Task | Employee | Team Lead | Payroll |
|---|---|---|---|
| Submit request | R | A | — |
| Check coverage | — | AR | — |
| Approve/deny | — | AR | — |
| Update payroll record | — | A | R |
The team lead means well. They want to stay close to everything so nothing slips. But look at the pattern: Accountable on every single row, including the one step — updating payroll — that has nothing to do with them. This is the most common flag the rule-checker catches, and it's rarely malicious. It's a habit built from being the one who always ends up fixing things when they don't check. The problem is that an A on every row doesn't protect the process, it just means every task still has to pass through one person before it's considered done. That's not a RACI matrix. That's a checkpoint with extra steps.
Version two: the ops manager who's read about RACI
| Task | Employee | Team Lead | Ops Manager | HR | Founder |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submit request | R | A | C | C | C |
| Check coverage | — | AR | C | — | — |
| Approve/deny | — | AR | C | C | C |
| Update payroll record | — | I | A | — | — |
The ops manager has clearly studied the framework — there's structure here, roles are distributed, nobody is Accountable on everything. But the flag that trips is the Consulted column on a decision that takes two minutes to make. Three C's on "approve or deny a time-off request" means the team lead now has to loop in the ops manager, HR, and the founder before saying yes to a vacation day. This is the mistake people make when they treat RACI as a completeness exercise instead of a speed one. Every role you add to a row is a reason the task waits.
Version three: the founder who wants out of the loop
| Task | Employee | Team Lead | Ops Manager | Payroll |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submit request | R | — | — | — |
| Check coverage | — | R | — | — |
| Approve/deny | — | R | C | — |
| Update payroll record | — | — | — | R |
This is the version a tired founder writes trying to remove themselves. No A anywhere. It looks like delegation, but it's the opposite — without an Accountable owner, the request has nobody who has to say yes or no. It sits. The team lead treats it as Responsible, meaning they'll do something, but nothing says they own the final call. Eventually the request stalls long enough that it lands back on the founder anyway, because someone has to break the tie. Removing yourself from the matrix doesn't fix the bottleneck if you don't also assign the A to someone else.
The fixed raci template
| Task | Employee | Team Lead | Ops Manager | Payroll |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submit request | AR | I | — | — |
| Check coverage | — | AR | — | — |
| Approve/deny | — | AR | I | I |
| Update payroll record | — | I | — | AR |
Each row has exactly one Accountable owner. Consulted is gone entirely — this decision doesn't need outside input, it needs a clear yes or no. Informed replaces it where people just need to know the outcome. No founder appears anywhere in the matrix. That's the point: a five-minute decision should be ownable by the people closest to it.
| Who filled it in | What broke | What the fix looked like |
|---|---|---|
| Team lead | A on every row | One A per row, others moved to I |
| Ops manager | Three C's on a fast decision | C's removed, replaced with I where needed |
| Founder | No A anywhere | A assigned explicitly to employee, lead, and payroll |
The SOP behind the matrix
Once the matrix is right, write the SOP in four sentences: an employee submits a time-off request with proposed dates; the team lead checks coverage against the schedule and approves or denies within one business day; approved requests are logged with payroll the same day; denied requests go back to the employee with a one-line reason. That's the whole document. Exported as a PDF, it sits in a shared folder, gets referenced instead of asked about, and the decision stops bouncing between three inboxes.
This is what the EXIUSS RACI Matrix Engine is built to do — list your roles and tasks, get a first-pass matrix, and let the rule-checker flag the A-on-everything pattern, the three-C pile-up, or the missing Accountable before the matrix goes live. It also drafts the SOP from the same inputs, and exports to PDF, CSV, or text.
Quick checklist
- List every task in the decision, not just the final approval step
- Confirm exactly one Accountable per row, no more, no fewer
- Cut Consulted down to people whose input changes the outcome
- Replace extra A's and C's with Informed where someone just needs to know
- Write the SOP behind the corrected matrix in three to five sentences
- Run it through the free RACI matrix generator to catch what you missed