In American Football, the Quarterback’s job isn’t to throw the ball to himself, or an Offensive Linemen for that matter. The Super Bowl-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes knows his job and clearly, he does his job well, in other words, know your role and stick to it.
In business, the best tool, and easy to use tool to help business leaders do the same thing is a RACI.
RACI is an acronym that stands for
Responsible – Allocated to the people who will do the work.
Accountable – Allocated to one person only. One. This is the person unequivocally in charge of the work
Consulted – Allocated to the people who will feed into the work. They may be involved in the definition; their involvement is decided by the Accountable person
Informed – Allocated to the people who are just TOLD about the work. They are not required to feed into- or take part in- the work.
A RACI is used to allocate clear levels of responsibility for areas of a project to people. So, for any particular task in a project, you can use RACI to allocate specific responsibility so that the whole team understands what they are expected to do.
This RACI template excel is used to allocate responsibilities to people (by name), job roles, teams, or organizations – depending on your use case.
The template is in MS Excel and can be uploaded to Google Sheets.
Two common use cases for RACI
1. Project tasks to team RACI
Project tasks can be complex, especially when you are part of a team. This is where using a RACI (i.e., Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) comes in handy. By applying project task RACI to the team's workflows, it becomes easier to understand who is responsible for what tasks and how they should keep each other informed along the way.
The 4 roles involved in the project tasks RACI model simplify managing complex tasks between teams by providing clarity and assigning specific roles to each team member at any given time. Furthermore, with this system there is an overall visibility of progress as well as improved efficiency around who needs to stay updated on project operations and processes.
Using a RACI is the perfect way to keep teams and individuals organized, especially in the case of project tasks. By assigning a responsible, accountable, consulted and informed person for every task or decision, project managers have a clear structure in place to make sure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities.
Project tasks carried out as part of a team RACI can create more efficiency in the workplace. The use of this strategy makes managing teams easier and allows everyone to be held accountable for their task completion. Through accurate definition of their roles, team members can focus on tasks more accurately and meet deadlines faster.
2. Product Launch RACI
Launching a new product is an exciting yet daunting project to take on. It requires careful planning and coordination across multiple departments. To ensure a successful launch, it is important to have an efficient system in place that tracks progress, keeps tasks on track and monitors budgets. A RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted-Informed) matrix can be just the tool you need for this purpose.
RACI matrices make sure that tasks get completed efficiently and on time without compromising on quality. They also help control budget and remove any red tape that can slow down the product development process. Additionally, with a RACI matrix in place it takes less time to get products out into the market giving you an edge over your competition!
Using the Product Launch RACI template will turn your team into a productivity machine. Add these 12-Basic Steps to launching a digital product or service to the RACI after you download it. Each step should be assigned to one person, dedicated with the responsibility to get the tasks completed.
The template is in MS Excel, and can be uploaded to Google Sheets.
1. Define Your Target Audience and know how to reach them
Identifying your ideal customers helps you create consistent, focused messaging which can greatly enhance your marketing efforts. It also enables you to more effectively connect with them and build relationships. A crucial step in advertising is to have a thorough understanding of your target audience. Ask yourself questions like 'What is the most effective place to advertise?' or 'How will my target audience interpret this advertisement?'. By doing this, you can create ads that resonate with your audience and leave a lasting impression.
2. Know The Problem You’re Solving - Focus on the Benefits of the Product from the Users Perspective
Always stay focused on those you serve and why. Seek feedback from your customers to ensure that you're able to meet their needs before doing anything else. Make sure that your efforts are addressing an unmet requirement of theirs.
Download this template to create the perfect Customer Avatar; and know EXACTLY who your customers are!
3. Understand The Buying Journey
To successfully complete marketing and sales activities, it is essential to be aware of the buyer's struggles and preferences. You have to understand where they get their information from and who affects the buying process. The buying procedure lies at the core of all these operations.
4. Secure Your Online Brand Identity ASAP - Digital Assets/Real Estate
In today’s world of online business, there are plenty of hoarders of digital assets such as domain names, trademarks, and social media accounts that have no intention to use these assets but they create them to try to take advantage of businesses who do not secure their digital brand assets. It is critical to secure all these before launching anywhere.
Assign someone to focus on grabbing these vital brand assets prior to product launch:
Domain name
Logo
Social Media profiles and brand tags
5. Validate Your Product
If a buyer is not sold on your product/service after hearing your pitch, there's a good chance they won't purchase it even when it exists. One way to ensure potential customers are interested in what you are offering is to create a landing page. Run ads. See if anyone clicks the “Buy Now” button. If so, you’ve got validation.
6. Know Your Competition And Be Different
Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of other successful brands, why not pause and think about what differentiates your brand? Don’t compete with Nike by calling yourself Victory. By focusing on your unique strengths and brand story, you can create something that stands out. Resist the temptation to just copy someone else’s success and make an attempt to craft something special and unique.
7. Lay Out A Comprehensive Strategic Plan
It is essential for any brand to carefully strategize their product launches for desired results. Taking the time to plan ahead can help maximize a product's chances of success. This includes things such as evaluation of the marketplace/competition, Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats (SWOT), determining ROI, how to measure success and communications planning. This is best handled by your company or team’s strategic leaders.
8. Create Branding Guidelines
Once your brand is set up, it's important to set specific rules and guidelines for how the brand will be represented in terms of its voice and tone. Without this, you won't be able to properly interact with the marketplace and make an impact. Consistency is key for a brand, so you want to set the team up for success when it comes to broadcasting brand messages.
9. Offer Early Use Incentives
Generating excitement before the launch of your product is vital. To make this a success, you can offer discounts for preorders, free trial runs, and other benefits that will interest potential customers and make them purchase when it officially debuts. These incentives can be great drivers of sales once the product is out in the market. The feedback gathered from this valuable product promotion phase helps in refining the product to reach perfection. During Beta, no one expects the product to be perfect, but it's essential to test and get feedback so that we can enhance its features.
10. Keep Testing
Dory said it best...
Test, deploy, and test some more. Launching a new product or service isn’t easy. The one thing every brand should do beforehand is test it; test it until it breaks and then test it again. One of my project goals with every platform and application product launch, was to break it and find every flaw before it ended up in the hands of the customer. As a Project Manager, the customer is your client. Your goal at this step should be to collect as much feedback and insight to help you get closer to delivering the experience you intended, and that the client expected.
11. Know What You Don’t Know
In my experience, the many developers, designers, and creators who launch products are good at some things but not all things. Before you launch, understand your limitations. Either hire or more outsource the skills you need. I love comic books, and the best characters typically had one person dedicated to writing the stories and another dedicated to illustrating the stories. The same goes for business; strategic leaders do not run operations or marketing. Same can be said for sports; coaches and training do not play the game, the athletes do but they need - whether they like to admit it or not - athletes need great coaching and conditioning to win. When you make a SWOT analysis, be honest about YOUR weaknesses. Find a partner or outsource the work you are not at your strongest doing, so you can focus on what you do best.
12. Know Your Story
Understand your story so well that you can tell it to anyone: media, new customers, brands you can co-market with, and more. If you can’t clearly say who you are, what you do, and what inspired you, you will lose anyone who could help you.
Once you have your Customer Avatar and your Brand Guidelines, you have two of the core elements to sell your story. The last piece is your “Why” remember people don't buy your product because of what you do they buy because of why you do it. What is your story? Share this in your social media content, your online stores, and of course your email marketing that will connect the human aspect of your product to your customer's buying decision-making.
There isn’t a team, project, or type of business that cannot use a RACI. In fact, every organization or initiative should have a RACI and use it to keep roles and responsibilities clear amongst all members involved. Use the tool that winning teams and organizations use.
I devote my professional life to helping entrepreneurs and small business owners reach their goals. So stay in touch by dropping a comment and connect on YouTube and Twitter!
I'm Ehren Muhammad, Founder of EMPro, Ltd
Let's connect!
YouTube: Ehren Muhammad channel
Twitter: ChiBrother85
EMPro, Ltd - Branding & Digital Marketing
Digital Solutions for Small Business
Chicago, IL
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