Or, Making sure nobody asks “What is going on?”

The DACI framework was developed by Intuit back in the 80s, and it’s a great framework for stakeholder management.

A few weeks ago, one of my direct reports asked me in a 1:1 if there was a way for him to make sure he was keeping our department involved in the work he was performing in a cross-functional POD. My department is split across 3 cross-functional PODs, so it’s natural to be concerned about keeping the department up to date on product updates that might impact how the rest of the department operates. I asked if he was familiar with the DACI framework, and then spent a few minutes looking for a resource to explain it. I sent him an Atlassian article about it, but I figured I would write a post to explain my own thinking on it.

What is the DACI framework?

DACI is an acronym for

• Drivers
• Approver
• Contributors
• Informed

These are all the potential roles that a stakeholder may have in any piece of work. Before you start a new piece of work that you don’t already have a system for, consider your stakeholders. The DACI framework is critical for the most complex or important work, but as you get more comfortable with it, you can include it in smaller pieces of work. This should only take a couple of minutes.

Note that some people use RACI, where R stands for “responsible”.

Driver

This is the person in charge of managing the stakeholders. This person is asking the questions, getting the stakeholders together, collecting feedback, and getting a decision from the approver.

Approver

This person has the final say. Go or no go. They’re getting the information from the driver and making final decisions on how to proceed. There should only be 1 approver to prevent split decisions and uncertainty.

Contributors

These are the people actually doing the work. They can provide feedback and input to the Driver to give to the Approver, but they are in charge of the output, not necessarily the outcome the Approver will decide on.

In some cases, a contributor may not be actually doing the work, but they may have relevant expertise, and can provide additional recommendations.

Informed

These are all the other people affected by the work. Typically, unless something goes wrong, they’re not providing feedback or recommendations to the Driver.

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Depending on the type of work, there may be overlap in drivers, approver, or contributors. If a contributor is only involved in part of the work, but will be affected by the final product, they might also be in the “informed” category.

By using the DACI framework, you can avoid a lot of frustrating questions like

“Did you talk to person X yet?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“What is going on?”

Make everyone’s life easier, and make better decisions with DACI.