What “having the ball” means
In Japanese workplaces, people often ask “Who has the ball on this?” or say “The ball is with us now.” It means who is handling the work and who needs to act next. ZARMS uses this expression as is.What a single assignee leaves out
In typical task management, you set a task name and a main assignee (one person or a team). But these things often go undecided:- Who started this work (who asked for it)
- Who checks whether it’s done
- Who receives the result
Every piece of work has someone who receives it
ZARMS assumes that all work produces some kind of deliverable, and the work is finished when someone receives it. That’s why there’s a Receiver role.
In the budget example, a manager checks the plan before it goes out. The manager is the Reviewer, and the contact at the receiving department is the Receiver. It’s common for the person who checks the work and the person who finally receives it to be different people.
Roles are tied to statuses
The four roles are tied to the card’s status. When you move the status forward, the ball passes to the next role.
The status tells you who acts next. Cards where you have the ball are collected on Home and My Board. Clear them every day and hand them to the next person, and work keeps flowing.
For details on moving statuses, see Status and the ball: whose turn it is.
A responsibility chart you can actually use every day
A well-known way to sort out responsibility is to name who does the work, who is accountable, who is consulted, and who is informed (RACI). It’s useful, but too heavy to apply to every daily task. ZARMS’s four roles are a pared-down version you can use every day. They only answer: who starts it, who does it, who checks it, and who receives it. People who just want to keep up with a card follow it instead of taking a role.You don’t have to fill every role
One person can hold all four roles. When you create a card with quick create, all four start as you (admins and board settings can change this default).- Your own work: Keep yourself in all four roles.
- Work you ask someone else to do: Change only the Processor to that person. You stay Reviewer and Receiver.
- Work that needs a check: Set the person doing the work as Processor, a manager or reviewer as Reviewer, and the requester as Receiver.