I've seen this story too many times. A company feels a lack of role clarity. They task someone to make a detailed RACI matrix for every topic. They share it with everyone. Nothing changes. Four years later, they do it again.
Too many teams are still clinging to RACI — a tool built for a slower, simpler era. But today’s work is fast, messy, and deeply collaborative. And RACI? It’s no longer fit for purpose.
If you want your team to move faster, stay aligned, and feel more ownership — it’s time to leave RACI behind and switch to FORCE to make sure every team is a force of nature.
The Problem with RACI
RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed.
It was developed in the 1950s to clarify who does what in project work — back when teams were linear, roles were rigid, and decisions flowed top-down.
Back then, it worked. Today it leads to confusion, demotivation, and waste.
Confusion from RACI
Today, it causes more confusion than clarity. Let’s break it down:
- The difference between Responsible and Accountable? Ask five people, get seven answers. Why would someone be responsible but not accountable? What message does that send? A great team is accountable together.
- Responsible - Well, isn't everyone responsible for their own work in a team?
- I'm accountable but not responsible, so what do I do? Do I just wait to be blamed?
- Why does Consulted often just mean “copied on every email”?
- Why are people Informed about everything, even when nothing they do is affected?
Demotivation from RACI
The words in RACI are not written to be the role you play on a team. They are written to be either blaming or micro-managing.
- Accountable - Does reminding someone they are "accountable" drive a person's intrinsic motivation—their play, purpose, and potential? Instead it sounds like you're stating who is to blame if the work fails. In organizations that seek to be more innovative, or better managers of risk, why are we reminding people of blame?
- Consulted and informed- The words are an action that someone takes, not a role. Why do we feel the need to micromanage these actions?
Waste from RACI
Creating the giant decision matrix upfront is wasteful. Not only does it hardly get used, but it isn't how decisions are actually made. They way decisions are made in organizations are more a function of the ideas people come up with (not topics) and the risk level of those ideas.
Work has changed
Modern work isn’t a checklist. It’s a series of problems to solve — often cross-functional, ambiguous, and fast-moving.
The same person may start out just observing, then jump in as an expert, and later take ownership. Roles evolve. Teams adapt. Work doesn’t follow a script.
And in today’s organizations, it’s not unusual for someone — a legal reviewer, a compliance lead, or a dependent exec — to block a deliverable late in the game. That’s not poor collaboration. That’s just how real work works.
You can’t solve for this with a spreadsheet and a static acronym.
You need something built for how work happens now.
Enter: The FORCE model
The FORCE model offers a modern alternative. One that’s simple, intuitive, and aligned with how great teams actually operate.
Here’s how it works:
- Follower – Passively follows along, because they how to learn from from the work. It is their job to follow, not the owners job to make them follow.
- Owner – Leads the work which includes quarterbacking any problem solving. There can be multiple owners. You'd expect an owner to share a weekly reflection of the work they own.
- Coach – Mentors the owner. Think sports coach — not on the field, but fully invested in winning.
- Reviewer – Has a say in quality or approval. They can block the work if needed. But crucially, they’re involved early, not just at the end. These could be other executives who inherit downstream impacts from the work, or a QA engineer or editor who is responsible for quality.
- Expert – Brings specific knowledge or craft to help the Owner succeed. Experts should take on deliverables when needed.
That’s it. Five roles. Flexible enough to match the flow of modern work. Clear enough that everyone knows what to do. Human enough that people feel motivated, not boxed in.
Becoming a FORCE of nature
The Factor.AI platform helps organizations at any scale continuously manage motivation and performance in any team. In Factor, every piece of work is tagged with FORCE roles, that are easy to change and evolve over time.
When a team defines a problem to solve — whether it’s a new product launch, a cross-functional process fix, or a quarterly initiative — they assign:
- F - Who’s simply following along
- O - Who owns it
- R - Who needs to review
- C - Who’s coaching
- E - Which experts are involved
And because Factor is powered by AI, the platform routes the right content to the right people based on their role.
- Followers stay in the loop without sitting in every meeting.
- Owners get surfaced the actions they need to take.
- Reviewers get notified at the right moment — so they’re never left out or brought in too late.
- Coaches can track progress without micromanaging and countless status meetings.
- Experts are recommended for various next steps.
No more reading 10-page memos you don’t need. No more unnecessary invites clogging your calendar.
Just the right signal, at the right time, to the right person.
Here’s how the shift from RACI to FORCE feels inside a team:
Great teams don’t delegate responsibility — they share it
You know as well as I do—the best teams don’t obsess over who’s responsible vs. accountable. They obsess over clear teamwork and working together to get it done. In other words, they take collective accountability.
They ask: What’s the problem? Who’s owning it? How do we get it done — together?
FORCE doesn’t just create clarity. Force creates momentum and motivation.
A Vega Factor article wouldn't be finished without something that reveals our deep inner nerd. Go back to your physics lessons.
Work = Force × distance.
in Factor.AI work is about the right workFORCE going the distance together. Yes, I went there. I'm not ashamed.
So: Ditch RACI. Use FORCE. Get moving.
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