Something to doWorking with others
Clarify who decides
A simple worksheet to settle who does, decides, weighs in, and hears about each part of a shared project
Why it’s worth your time
When nobody's sure who decides, decisions either stall or get made twice. Writing it down, with one name per decision, turns a vague group effort into something people can move on. It also tells everyone when they'll be asked, which is often what they were really worried about.
How to make a simple RACI chart
You’ll come away with a one-page grid everyone on the project has seen and agreed to.
We’ll turn this into a checklist you can tick off.
- Name the calls this project will need.
Fill in the grid for the decisions and pieces of work most likely to stall. You don't need every task, only the ones people could disagree about or wait on.
Stays in this browser only. Nobody else sees it.
- Keep one name in the decides column.
Several people can do the work and plenty can be asked, but each call needs one person who makes it. If two names keep wanting to go there, that's the conversation to have now, before it matters.
- Share it as a draft and ask what's wrong.
Send it to everyone named, framed as your best understanding. You're looking for the disagreements now, while they're cheap.
To: everyone on the projectTo keep the project moving, I've sketched who does each piece, who makes the final call, who we check with first, and who just needs to hear. It's a draft: the grid or a link
Could you look by day and tell me what's wrong? The places where you expected to decide, or to be asked, and aren't listed are the ones I most want to hear about.
Swap the highlighted parts for your thing. Works on Slack, in email, or said out loud. - Put it where the project lives.
Pin it in the project doc or channel. Revisit it when someone joins or leaves, or when the scope shifts.
Good moments for this: at the start of any shared projectwhen someone joins or leaves the projectwhen the same decision stalls twice
We’ll turn this into a checklist you can tick off.
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Every person there is someone the decision waits on. Include the people whose input could change the answer, and move everyone else to hears about it.
What might make this harder
Don't try to settle it between the two of you. Take the grid to whoever you both report to, early, and ask. Asking each person why they see it that way usually helps too.
Questions people ask
What is a RACI chart?
A grid that shows, for each task or decision, who is responsible for doing it, who is accountable for the outcome, who is consulted, and who is informed. It's used to make roles on a shared project clear.
What's the difference between RACI and DACI?
Both map roles on a project. DACI names a driver who moves the decision along and an approver who makes it, plus contributors and people informed. The core idea is the same: one clear decider.
How do I figure out who has the final say on a project?
List the decisions most likely to get stuck and ask, for each one, who would answer for it if it went wrong. That's usually who should decide. If it's still unclear, ask your manager.
What does consulted mean on a project?
It means your input is asked for before a decision is made, and it can shape the outcome. Informed means you hear about the decision after it's made.
Why this works, and where it comes from
Shared projects rarely stall because the work is hard. More often, a question sits in a thread, three people offer opinions, and nobody feels entitled to say yes. Or two people each decide, in good faith, and someone finds out a week later. Neither is really a people problem. It's a missing name.
Much of the friction comes from mismatched expectations about being asked. From the other person's side, hearing about a decision they thought they'd get a say in feels like being overruled, even when the call was reasonable. Writing down who's asked first, and by when, fixes most of that. What people usually want isn't the decision itself, it's the chance to shape it.
Project managers have used a version of this for decades, the RACI chart: for each task, who's responsible, who's accountable, who's consulted and who's informed. A cousin called DACI names a driver and a single approver. Truest's version keeps the columns in plain words and skips the full task list. You only need the grid for the calls that could stall.
When someone else gets the call, it's fair to ask why, and worth understanding the answer; there's usually a reason, often about who carries the risk. And if what's really stuck is a decider who won't decide, the grid won't help. That's a direct conversation with them about what they're waiting for.
Other simple things to consider
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Written by Truest, based on RACI (responsibility assignment matrix); similar to DACI decision-making framework. Last updated October 2, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.