When investing in business growth, it's important to have clearly defined roles at the outset. Everybody should know who to go to for creative input, execution, and approvals. And, there should be an accountable party with decision-making authority to unstick the stuck.
Clarity like this helps prevent early bottle-necking.
Over the last ten years, we tested HUNDREDS of ideas for accelerating the process of taking ideas to market.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that speed is everything.
The faster we...
... the better it ALL turns out.
For example, the businesses that hire us are equipped to pivot when radical economic shifts occur, And, they're able to propel their momentum when the wins start stacking up. As a service provider, this translates to longer engagements.
With every deployment, we learn something new and apply it to our template.
The responsibility assignment matrix template we use, ARCI (a play on the RACI template), is a big part of it, but it's not the only thing that matters.
Culture, processes, and project tools all play major parts in greasing the gears of Growth.
Starting suggestions include cultural alignment and adherence to an Agile methodology like Experimental Marketing.
This gets your company into a rhythm--a repeatable cycle of ideation and iteration. This perpetual motion makes complacency darn near impossible.
With Growth methodology, Experimental Marketing, you live in 2-week sprint cycles. This itself requires structures such as standup meetings throughout the week with specific, process-related agendas. (Learn and deploy these structures by getting certified)
Smarketing experts LOVE RACI because of its combination of simplicity and effectiveness.
It's an acronym that stands for:
Let's break down the project roles for this workable responsibility assignment matrix:
This is the individual who is going to carry out the task. If somebody is responsible for content approvals, they are the ones expected to give them. If they're responsible for project management, they're the ones doing the project management.
Accountability is actually higher up in the food-chain than Responsibility. Think of "Accountable" as where the "buck stops." If you're not getting what you need from the person responsible, then you go to the accountable person to shake the tree. It's because Accountable is higher that we use the ARCI variation as our template.
These are the people you go to for input. However, they're not decision-makers. For example, you writing a blog post that requires subject matter expertise from the organization. The SME would be added as "Consulted" for subject matter or certain parts of the content creation process.
These are other project stakeholders or contributors who may be affected by the decisions of others, but they're not actively involved in the process.
Click below to get our free RACI matrix template variation, ARCI: