Escalation Management in Projects

In 2017, I wrote up the following text on project escalation management. Its main objective is to provide a concise summary and some hands-on guidance, rather than a highly sophisticated or technical deep-dive that will earn the reader continuous education credits for their PMI/PMP certification.

Terminology

When two parties in a project are unable to agree on the resolution of an issue after a good-faith effort to negotiate, then an escalation is pursued to resolve this issue.

An escalation is the formal process of calling upon project stakeholders or higher levels of project leadership to resolve an issue, in cases where the authority, decision-making, resources or effort required for resolution are beyond a project manager’s horizon.

Identifying an escalation or escalative situation

An escalation may be the appropriate course of action whenever a project arrives at a conflict, issue or disagreement that cannot be resolved solely within the project team, and that may result in an undesirable impact on the project goals unless a timely resolution is found.

The following sections list a few examples of common project situations requiring escalation by the project manager:

Situation 1 - Resource Conflicts

People assigned to project tasks are pulled off project work to assist with problems outside the project, threatening the project’s ability to meet its schedule.

Objective of escalation:

Make sure the project impact is recognized and understood. Lobby for not losing the resource or for gaining a replacement.

Help to get to a workable solution to protect the goals of the project.

If the solution is acceptance of project slippage, the impact must be communicated to all stakeholders.

Situation 2 - Scope Creep

During a project, someone requests that the agreed-upon project scope be changed to add a new feature or deliverable.

Objective of escalation:

Make sure the impact on project schedule and/or cost is understood.

Confirm funding and resources to add the new feature to the project scope, or agree on trade-off/scope adjustment to fulfill the request within previously agreed time and budget.

Situation 3 - Issue with Deliverable

Late in a project, there are issues with a key project deliverable (product, system, software, document, …), and the team believes the issue cannot be corrected within the original time, scope, and cost goals of the project.

Objective of escalation:

Present the available options, and get a decision from the customer/steering committee:

Release with the current problem, or

Delay project completion to allow for resolution

Situation 4 - Inter-group Conflicts

One functional group is running late with a deliverable that another group needs to be able to stay on schedule.

Objective of escalation:

Highlight the problem to the respective functional management so priorities can be examined, resource decisions made, technical or content issues worked, and the situation resolved.

Managing an escalation and forcing a decision

During the initial stages of the project, project managers need to establish escalation guidelines with the project sponsor and team members. They must define to whom issues should be raised and within which timeframe, to ensure and enable quick action. To that end, escalation is a kind of proactive risk communication where the project manager is highlighting the bottleneck to the next level in the hierarchy for attention and quick resolution.

Before escalating any matter, the project manager needs to ensure that the necessary analysis and data gathering is done. It is recommended to prepare for an escalation meeting by collecting information and data on the following topics:

The last two points of this list are key: Never go into an escalation meeting without being able to present at least one possible solution for the stakeholders’ decision/vote. Ideally, the project team can present alternate options, along with a recommendation on how to move forward.

Make sure that this agenda item (agree on the way forward) gets closed during the meeting. Escalation meetings should not be understood as open discussions or self-help groups, but ultimately as a forum for quick and smooth fact-based decision-making.

Topics for special awareness

Timing of an escalation

Timely escalation gives the superiors a chance to contribute to the project more effectively with a decision or providing more resources when required. The project manager can use the following questions to determine whether it is the right time to escalate:

Has the project manager made a good attempt to find a solution to the problem with whatever authority and resources available, but has found a dead end?

Will any further delay in resolving the issue have a negative impact on the project deliverables, budget or schedule?

Is this an issue that the higher authority would expect to be escalated to them if a timely resolution is not reached?

Has the project manager waited for the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) of the other party for responding?

For example, if the SLA to respond is 3 days, it is not right to escalate the issue before 3 days (plus – optionally – an additional reminder at the end of the SLA period).

Avoid the "Cry Wolf" effect

This term is based on the story of a shepherd boy who used to falsely cry “wolf-wolf” in order to get the villagers’ help. Soon the villagers stopped believing him. When the wolf truly came, no one paid attention to his cries, nor did anyone help him.

In the project world, it means that frequent and unnecessary escalation should be avoided. Otherwise, when a concern emerges that truly requires action, it will be very hard to get the appropriate attention of superiors or stakeholders in resolving a related escalation.

Don't hesitate to escalate

Many times, a project manager is hesitant to escalate matters, because they

don’t want someone to look bad

don’t want to “go against” experienced team members, senior management or customer-side people

are afraid to damage relationships with colleagues or with other project stakeholders

want to avoid conflict

worry about their project to be perceived as out-of-control

However, it is a key part of the project manager’s job to remove constraints and resolve problems that will potentially harm the project. From the beginning of the project, it is important to create an understanding of escalation being a standard procedure whose only purpose is to get the project back on track, and not to finger-point at individuals or teams.

Bringing an escalation to an official end

An escalation is officially closed by the agreement on the way forward, as made in the escalation meeting. This decision (as well as any other points of note discussed or decided during the escalation meeting) is captured by the project manager in the escalation meeting minutes, which are distributed to all participants and all impacted stakeholders as per the project’s standard communication mechanism.

Closure of the escalation also means that the involved parties leave any potential discrepancies behind, and agree to move forward in a constructive and collaborative manner.

As part of the continuous improvement of a project organization, a recommended best practice is to capture the “lessons learned” from the escalation, such as:

What learnings did we gain from this problem?

What do we have to do to avoid future occurrences of the same problem?

Did we have any findings that will improve the quality or usability of our project deliverables?

Can other projects or team members benefit from our findings?