RACI Role List - can you overuse it?

Hi all

Admin, if this fits into an already existing thread, please feel free to move it, although I haven't seen the answer I am looking for in any of the other threads about RACI.

I sit in a large company that develops medical devices, but my part of the company develops software that are not regarded as medical devices - therefore I post in the ISO 9001:2015 section.

The top management team has decided that the company should have and follow a common Quality Management System, although my part of the organaization have some degrees of freedom becuase we "only" want a certificate in ISO 9001:2015. Part of the common QMS is to use the templates for SOPs and Work instructions that has been provided for us, and here's my concern.

In the SOPs, we should have a flowchart - I have no problem with that.
After the flowchart follows a "description table" that explains each step in the flowchart - no problem with that either. In the description table is also a "RACI column" where we must list all the roles, and each step can have multiple smaller tasks related to it so each task in a step also needs to have defined roles.
In my head, we are drowning if we have to do it so thoroughly, because we must also have a big "RACI Role List" where all employees are listed and all the roles each of them can have must be listed in here as well.

I can't get my head around this because I can't think of a way this will work without overdoing it and without making the system way to rigid.

Is there a rule of thump for a limit for how detailed you can describe steps in your process and still use RACI without loosing the value it can give you in terms of assigning responsibilities etc.?

 

Soren
A couple of points to consider:
1. You say "In the SOPs, we should have a flowchart" - why? i) you don't need to have a flowchart as well as text, and ii) an SOP can be a flowchart (see example attached).
2. Your "description table" sounds like extra work to complete, and a nightmare to update when you make changes to the process.

I have also attached a paper on how RACI is commonly used - and the confusion that can arise from it...

Hope this helps.

 

Hi pkfraser

Thanks for your inputs, very much appreciated.

1. That's a good point and something I am aware of. It's also a direction I am trying to pull everything in (or at least the things I can control). I think some of the issues here is that 1) I am new in the company, 2) we are multiple sites located in different countries that should follow the same system and 3) my company is used to have these mastodon document for SOPs and Work Instructions. It's not something I am particularly fond of but it's some culture thing that needs to be changes with time, I guess.

2. It is indeed a nightmare! Again, it's a culture thing that needs to be changed in order for the QMS to be more flexible and really encourage the users to both use the system and update processes when there is a need.