Page 89 - ITIL® Foundation 3.15

Being Accountable vs. Being Responsible
Accountable: Ownership of a process, and / or activity. The person who is held to ultimate accountability for the successful outcome of the goals and objectives. They delegate responsibility for work to be done to managers. They ensure that processes and guidelines are followed.
Responsible: Held to account for accomplishing daily or routine task or activities. This person gets the work done that has been assigned to them, but often will not have any authority outside of the scope of their specific tasks. Their responsibility will be limited or defined by the accountable party (owner). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Accountable roles oversee or “own” the process or task - (Accountable for Results) Example: A CIO is always accountable for the quality and delivery of all IT services. This includes the use-ability of services by the customer and the results that are produced by IT staff and supplier personnel. The CIO does not directly manage or perform tasks to deliver those services. He or she delegates the responsibility for managing or performing to others in the organization or to a sub-contractor (supplier). The CIO is the “owner” of the overall delivery, but assigns responsibility for performance to individual managers.
Responsible roles manage or perform the execution of one or more aspects of the processor task.(Responsible for performing work) Example: Line managers, product managers, or process managers are accountable (to the owner) for the results of their teams. They may further delegate the responsibility of daily tasks to individual team-members. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One person could be both Accountable and Responsible. They could own the accountability for success, but not have resources to appoint a manager for delegation of responsibility of work. An owner may also be “absentee”...They appoint a manager, give the manager high-level direction, and then are un-involved in anything being done until the manager comes back to inform them of progress.
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