The Ripple Effect

Gordon -

Having key stakeholder define a working agreement in advance of encountering such situations and having a communication plan in place can reduce the incidence and impact of such "waste" but there is no way to 100% prevent it so long as humans are involved in supporting and delivering projects.

Kiron

Hi Gordon,

I have felt the rippling sting of these "reality gaps" as well, triggered from:

-- Executive corridor conversations where high-level chitchat turns into a non-existent crisis.

-- Factual e-mail’s wherein the context is lost after it has been CC’d one too many times and the length of the e-mail is now past an executive’s "executive summary" tolerance.

-- Team members responding to questions from Sr. Management with "feelings" rather than their "knowledge."

The list goes on, and as Kiron stated, there is no way to eradicate the problem fully. I agree that agreements can help, but without accountability and consequences, the agreement won’t mean much in environments that are politically charged (which is the norm in large enterprises). Most PM’s want nothing to do with politics, but there are times when we must join the fray of corporate politics to have an opportunity to do our job free of politics (if that’s even possible). A technique towards that end could be a "highly visible trump card" that everyone knows you carry. For instance, it could be a real or perceived "C-Suite pass," where there’s a belief or understanding that you can walk into the executive wing on all concerns related to a given project. In this example, the root problem is not solved, but at least you have a bit more leverage/capital to get the job done and individuals in and outside of your team will think twice before sending information outside of normal channels – maybe.

Gordon, this is one of the real life situations that is not presented in training sessions. There is nothing that you can do to prevent it but there are things that you can do to prepare the mitigation.
The first one is to remain calm and don't start another email trail. Gather the information and then use the agreed communication channels to make sure that all the stakeholders are in the loop, that will prevent the escalation.
If the 'issue' already reached the C level than from personal experience the best option is to keep calm and let them know that you need to gather more information but you are working on resolving the issue. Most of the time the pointy head won't care about the detail, it will be just a matter of making sure that someone is working on resolving the issue rather than understanding if there is an issue in the first place.
The reason is that most of those fires are political and any experienced executive knows it. I can put a number but It will be in the first third, when the 'issue' is just a cover up from the business for not doing their part. Either lack of readiness to accept the project, finding that the is scope is incorrect, incomplete or useless after the project spent a considerable amount etc. I can write a book on that :)
Again, keep calm, take some (undeserved) blame and assure the pointy end that the issue is investigated and it will be resolved. Don't try to explain the obvious because that will just escalate the tension.

Being the person that others can go to who is calm, rational, and who has current and correct information, will count for a whole lot.

Once you've resolved the immediate problem and established the correct points of contact, make sure to inform the team that the issue is being handled and where to go for further information.

I'd suggest an after action review too. I hate those kinds of firestorms and if there is a specific stakeholder prone to starting this kind of thing, I'd consider how you manage the information, considering how this stakeholder reacts.