The RACI Nobody Wants to Fill In (And Why That's the Problem)

Everyone agrees on “data ownership.” Nobody agrees on who actually owns what.

I’ve sat in rooms where everyone nods at “we need data ownership.” Then you ask: who’s accountable for PII masking? Who approves quality SLAs? Silence.

A RACI takes 30 minutes to fill in. But the trap is treating it as a one-time exercise. Pick 4-6 decisions: data ownership model, PII masking, quality SLAs, catalog curation. Assign R/A/C/I per role - not person. CDO, CTO, Legal, Business Units.

Here’s the tip nobody gives you: bring the RACI to every data decision meeting. Not as a slide. As a filter. “Who’s the A on this? Then that’s who decides. Everyone else, you’re C or I - give input, then let it go.” That one move cuts meeting time in half and kills the finger-pointing loop.

Watch for red flags. More than one “A” per decision means nobody’s accountable. Everyone marked “C” means decision paralysis. A critical group only “I” means they’ll block you later.

Here’s the thing I keep seeing - if filling in the RACI creates friction, that IS the value. You just surfaced a gap that was costing you in slow decisions and finger-pointing.

Real example: customer-data domain. R = platform team. A = CDO. C = Product, Legal, Marketing. I = rest. Now the CDO can say “no” to unstructured data models and everyone knows why.

Start with 1-2 anchor decisions. Prove it works. Then expand.

Who is accountable for data quality in your organization? If you hesitated, you need a RACI.