SAP S/4HANA RACI Matrix: Roles and Responsibilities by Phase
A ready-to-use RACI for an SAP S/4HANA implementation: 22 key activities from Discover to Run, 11 programme roles, one accountable owner per activity, and a free CSV template you can open in Excel and adapt.
Opens in Excel or Google Sheets · free
How to read the S/4HANA RACI
R Responsible – does the work. A Accountable – approves the result and answers for it; exactly one per activity. C Consulted – gives input before the work is done. I Informed – kept up to date afterwards. A/R means the same role is accountable and does the work.
SAP S/4HANA RACI matrix
Activities follow the SAP Activate phases used in our SAP S/4HANA implementation roadmap. Hover a column heading for the full role name; the roles are explained below the matrix. Scroll sideways on small screens.
| Activity | ES | SC | PM | BPO | SA | FL | KU | DL | TL | CL | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discover and Prepare | |||||||||||
| Approve business case and budget | A | R | C | C | C | ||||||
| Project charter and governance model | A | C | R | C | C | I | C | ||||
| Integrated project plan and RAID log | I | I | A/R | C | C | C | C | C | C | C | |
| System landscape provisioning | I | A | R | ||||||||
| Explore | |||||||||||
| Fit-to-standard workshops | I | A | C | R | C | I | |||||
| Delta requirements and backlog prioritisation | C | A | C | R | C | C | |||||
| Solution design sign-off | I | I | A | R | R | C | C | ||||
| Data migration strategy | C | A | C | C | R | C | |||||
| Integration architecture | I | A | C | R | |||||||
| Test strategy | A | C | C | C | I | R | |||||
| Realize | |||||||||||
| Configuration and build | I | C | A | R | C | R | |||||
| Custom developments and interfaces | I | C | A | C | R | I | |||||
| Data cleansing | I | A | R | R | |||||||
| Mock data loads and reconciliation | I | C | C | C | A | R | |||||
| Unit and integration testing (SIT) | I | I | C | R | C | R | A | ||||
| Training material | C | R | R | A | |||||||
| Deploy | |||||||||||
| User acceptance testing and sign-off | I | I | A | C | R | R | |||||
| End-user training | C | C | R | A | |||||||
| Cutover plan and rehearsals | I | A | C | C | R | C | R | R | C | ||
| Go/no-go decision | A | R | R | C | C | C | C | C | |||
| Run | |||||||||||
| Hypercare and incident management | I | A | C | C | R | R | R | ||||
| Hypercare exit and handover to support / CoE | I | A | R | C | C | C | C | ||||
S/4HANA programme roles
| Role | What they do in the programme |
|---|---|
| ES – Executive sponsor | Owns the investment and the business outcome; chairs the steering committee; makes the final go/no-go call. |
| SC – Steering committee | Senior business and IT leaders who resolve escalations, approve scope changes and confirm phase gates. |
| PM – Programme manager / PMO | Owns the integrated plan, RAID log, status reporting, budget tracking and the cutover plan. |
| BPO – Business process owners | Senior business owners per process area (record to report, procure to pay, order to cash...) who decide on design and accept the solution. |
| SA – Solution architect | Owns end-to-end solution and technical integrity: design consistency, integration and extension strategy. |
| FL – Functional leads | Configure and document each module (FI, CO, MM, SD...); usually from the implementation partner. |
| KU – Key users | Business experts who join workshops, test, prepare training and support colleagues after go-live. |
| DL – Data migration lead | Owns migration objects, load tooling, mock loads and reconciliation reports. |
| TL – Technical lead | Basis, development and integration build: landscape, custom code, interfaces, performance. |
| CL – Change and training lead | Stakeholder engagement, communications, training curriculum and readiness assessment. |
| TM – Test manager | Test strategy, test planning, defect management and test exit reporting. |
Rules that make a RACI work
- One A per activity. Two accountable owners means none. Every row in the template has exactly one.
- The business owns design and acceptance. Business process owners, not the implementation partner, are accountable for solution design sign-off, data cleansing and UAT. A system integrator can be responsible for the work, but it cannot accept its own deliverable.
- Data is a business accountability with a technical engine. The data migration lead runs the loads; business process owners sign off on whether the migrated data is right.
- Keep C lists short. Every C is a meeting invitation. If everyone is consulted, decisions slow down.
- Name people, not just roles. Once the RACI is agreed in Prepare, add a column with the name behind each role and review it at every phase gate.
Adapting the RACI to your programme
Split the BPO column by process area (record to report, procure to pay, order to cash, plan to produce) if one person cannot cover all of them, and split FL by module when partner and internal consultants share the work. On SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, part of the technical lead's activities move to SAP, so landscape provisioning becomes a C rather than an R. If your programme includes AI agents, add rows for agent design, autonomy approval and monitoring; the Modern PMO guide covers the governance those rows need. For the decisions to take before this RACI exists, see the phase zero deliverables list.
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