Project Management

Please login or join to subscribe to this thread

Have you ever experienced an escalation that didn’t go as planned during the management of one of your projects?

linkedin twitter facebook   Communications Management  
avatar
Eduard Hernandez
Community Champion
Product Operations Program Manager Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain
If so, what were the key factors that contributed to the issue, and how did you handle it?
Sort By:
avatar
Thomas Walenta Global Project Economy Expert Hackenheim, Germany

Edward,

yes, several times and for different reasons / settings.

For example, escalating a flawed contract calculation to business management. They ignored it since the consequences would show only after the contract ended after three years, and their interest was annual goals and boni.



Learning here: Make your escalation interesting to those you are escalating to. Just being superior on the company ladder does not make them the right and interested stakeholders. By the way, the sponsor left the company when the situation exploded after three years.
avatar
Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Eduard -

Quite early in my PM career, I experienced the impacts of prematurely escalating a situation. I had run into a staffing concern on my project and rather than taking it up directly with the respective functional manager, I asked my sponsor to intervene. While it did resolve the issue rapidly, the fallout was pretty heavy with the functional manager loudly criticizing me for not having come to him directly first.

This taught me that while it is bad to hold off on escalating past a certain point it is equally bad to do so too early.

As with everything else, timing is key and knowing when to escalate is a skill which comes with experience.

Kiron

Please login or join to reply

Content ID:
ADVERTISEMENTS

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."

- Oscar Wilde

ADVERTISEMENT

Sponsors







Vendor Events

See all Vendor Events

Newsletters

Jun 3: The Career Problem Facing New PMs
May 20: Your PM Career as a Project Life Cycle
May 13: The Big Lie After Layoffs

See all newsletters