Escalation Process in Project Management: Definition, Role, Process, and Best Practices

Project escalation refers to communicating project issues or concerns to higher levels of management or authority within an organization. It serves as a mechanism to address and resolve problems that cannot be effectively handled at lower levels of the company hierarchy.

Preparing for potential Events

Escalation Event — potential or actual matters that may result in negative impacts to the Project, Program, or Organization overall.

Examples of Events: Unmanaged Risks, Resource Availability, Delays, Unexpected Expenses, Potential violation of laws, rules and/or regulations, and Policy breaches.

Examples of Impact: Schedule Delays, Cost Overruns, Resource Constraints, Quality Issues, Potential Regulatory Actions, Reputation Impact, Business Damage, Employee Impact.

As the Project manager, you are the Point of Contact for Escalation by the Project Team. Some Events you will be able to resolve within your role or authority. Others you will have to escalate further.

As a Project Manager, you want to be informed about Events in a timely fashion. Usually, it means establishing proper Monitoring. However, some brewing Events can be identified earlier. Establishing a Culture of No Surprises will help detect them early and take measures. Culture of No Surprises means “If you feel something is not right, speak up.” It requires every team member to be a Risk Manager. Every team member is therefore responsible for escalating Events.

Ask the team to raise Events promptly:

• When a gut feeling tells them that something is not right;
• Even if all details or impact are initially unknown;
• Without fear of having sole ownership of remediating the Event;
• Without fear of retaliation.

From the project outset, define a clear escalation path and mechanism. For instance, establish an escalation committee (e.g., your sponsors or upper management board) and agree on escalating major issues when necessary and bypassing certain hierarchy levels to escalate faster.

Sometimes you want to inform stakeholders of some potential Events through regular Project Updates before they are realized. It helps align “big guns” with your understanding of the issue and ensures rapid response.

Resolving Events

The simple rules of escalation are:

✅ Try to negotiate first.

✅ Some of the Events you won’t be able to handle within your role or authority. In this case, give a fair warning that you will escalate the issue to <name of the manager> because of <list project interests>. After that, in half of the cases, you will miraculously be able to reach an agreement.

✅ Write down (or at least think through) argumentation on how the issue impacts the project, its deliverables, schedule, budget, or other constraints. Describe several possible scenarios in a rational and emotionless way.

✅ Email your analysis to the manager responsible for resolving escalation. Include conflicting parties in the email chain. If necessary, run a meeting with the manager. If the issue is critical to the project’s success – involve the project sponsor in the process. It is helpful to align the position of the sponsor on the matter beforehand.

✅ Hear out the decision. Remember, the decision you don’t like is a result if it allows the project to move forward. And if, for example, you couldn’t free the resource with escalation, it’s necessary to reflect this in the risk management plan and the impact of the decision on the project.

✅ Try to avoid conclusions like ‘they are all wrong’ or ‘the manager who did not give the resource is a scoundrel’. Escalation is a process that doesn’t leave room for personal perception. At most, you can adjust the stakeholder management plan as you get a better idea of their motivation, level of influence, etc.

❌ Far too often, Project Managers are afraid of the very word ‘escalation’. They usually believe that escalating a problem demonstrates their incompetence or inability to manage a team. This is the wrong way to think about escalations. A Project Manager never has absolute influence and power in the company, making situations requiring escalation inevitable. The earlier you escalate those, the better.

Generally, every escalation requires some resolution time to implement the decisions agreed upon by the escalation board. You will need to regularly inform your escalation committee of status and progress updates until the Event is completely resolved. And, after getting back on track, you should conduct a lessons-learned exercise with your project team to learn and grow from the encountered crisis situation.