RAPID, RACI, DACI, and DARE are the frameworks executive teams reach for when decisions get messy. Each is a structured way to assign decision rights — and each is good at a specific job. Here is what they are, when to use which, and the one question none of them answers.
Put simply: a decision framework is a template for writing down who decides. When a recurring decision keeps stalling or blowing up into a debate, naming the roles — who recommends, who is consulted, who actually decides — fixes a real and common problem. The trap is treating the chart as the goal. A framework allocates rights for one class of decisions; it does not tell you whether your decision system as a whole is healthy. Both things matter, and they are not the same thing.
Responsible · Accountable · Consulted · Informed
A responsibility-assignment matrix built for tasks, projects, and process steps. It maps who does the work (Responsible), who is ultimately answerable (Accountable), who is consulted, and who is kept informed.
Best when the pain is operational ownership of work and handoffs — “I thought you had it” gaps — rather than the authority to make a strategic call.
Recommend · Agree · Perform · Input · Decide
A model from Bain & Company for high-stakes, cross-functional decisions. Its distinguishing features are a single accountable Decider and an explicit Agree role that carries a veto, which forces real disagreement into the open before the decision is made.
Best when a consequential decision is contested across functions and needs one unambiguous owner to end the diffusion of responsibility.
Driver · Approver · Contributors · Informed
A framework that originated at Intuit and was popularized by Atlassian. A Driver moves the decision forward, a single Approver makes the call, Contributors provide input, and the Informed are told the outcome. It is built to keep group decisions moving toward one approver.
Best when recurring group decisions stall because responsibility is diffuse and no one is driving them to closure.
Deciders · Advisers · Recommenders · Execution stakeholders
A McKinsey model that reserves the vote for named Deciders and cleanly separates advice from authority. Its sharp edge is dissolving the assumption that being in the room — or having an opinion — equals having a vote.
Best when meetings balloon into ten-person debates because everyone treats their input as a vote, slowing every decision down.
For a head-to-head of the three most common executive frameworks — and a decision rule for choosing between them — see RAPID vs RACI vs DARE.
Every framework on this page does the same fundamental thing: it allocates decision rights for a class of decisions. That is genuinely useful. But notice what it leaves untouched. A perfectly drawn RACI chart can sit unused in a wiki. A clean RAPID map can still route every hard call to the founder, because the Decider is always the same overloaded person. A decision can be assigned an owner and still reopen next quarter because closure was never structural. The framework tells you how one decision should be made; it does not tell you whether your decision system, across hundreds of decisions, actually works.
That whole-system health is a different measurement. Leadership Architecture scores it across five dimensions: Decision Clarity and Role Ownership (which a good framework helps produce), plus Escalation Discipline, Leadership Load Balance, and Execution Alignment (which it does not). The practical implication is a sequence: measure the system first, then choose the framework that fixes the dimension that scores lowest. Reaching for a framework before you know which dimension is the constraint is how teams end up with three abandoned RACI charts and the same execution problem.
The most widely used are RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed), RAPID (Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, Decide), DACI (Driver, Approver, Contributors, Informed), and DARE (Deciders, Advisers, Recommenders, Execution stakeholders). Each is a structured way to assign decision rights; they differ in whether they emphasize task ownership, a single decider, group drive, or separating advice from authority.
There is no single best framework — it depends on the pain. Use RACI when the problem is operational ownership of work. Use RAPID when a high-stakes decision is contested and needs one clear Decider. Use DACI to keep recurring group decisions moving. Use DARE when meetings balloon because everyone assumes their input is a vote. Match the tool to the failure you actually have.
A framework assigns decision rights for one class of decisions. It does not tell you whether your decision system as a whole is healthy — whether authority is clear, issues escalate correctly, decision load is balanced, and decisions become coordinated action. A chart can be perfectly drawn and still go unused. That whole-system health is what leadership architecture measures.
Sources: Framework origins — RAPID (Bain & Company); DACI (Intuit, popularized by Atlassian); DARE (McKinsey); RACI (project-management practice).
Five minutes. No account. See which structural dimension is constraining your execution.