The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - What to Do When Escalation is Not Enough | Foundations Friday 83

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

I've found that I can raise an issue, whether asking for a critical decision, guidance, or awareness, that sometimes isn't enough. Sometimes, as Project or Program Managers, we can raise awareness, but maybe we don't have the right people assembled. Or, perhaps we have room to improve our communication around the issue.In this week's Foundations Friday, I elaborate a bit more on this.

Thank you for choosing the KevTalks podcast. Let's get logged on and get locked in as we share people's compelling stories, talk about industry-leading best practices, and the hope that we can all make progress together. But for now, let's fly back into this episode in 3, 2, 1. Welcome to Foundations Friday 83. Sometimes escalation is not enough. So I've talked about escalation not being a four-letter word, meaning program managers, project managers, product managers even. If you missed the episode with Jillian Funes, please go listen to that about product management.

But anyone leading teams through a process to help the company make progress. Escalation is needed sometimes when you're not getting the feedback, the action, whatever it is from maybe teammates at your company or vendor partners, whomever. And sometimes just the people above you and the other folks need to be brought in. And that's not a failure. It's a tool. But sometimes you could escalate all the way to the top of both orgs and things still aren't happening. And to me, that then brings it back to communication and just bringing people together and talking through the issue, right? And hopefully before you escalated, you did that with everyone involved and not just folks, you know, that are in leadership,

but people that have the answers, that have the solution, that know the problem. And that's the lesson I learned this week, too, is get clarity on the problem and understand the whole back backstory before you escalate or so you can escalate more accurately. And so while escalation is a great tool to get some help and guidance from maybe more senior folks that have more experience or, frankly, more influence with other folks in your company or outside of it, but also know the whole story and know that sometimes you can hit a ceiling of escalation where everyone says, how can we help? What can we do?

How can we escalate? And you've already done that, and there's maybe nowhere to go. And so just bring folks together and talk it through and get the facts and prioritize the work, right, is helpful. So get clarity, bring the right folks together, prioritize the work, and then your escalation can have a little more effect but you know sometimes it's just a matter of that communication so hopefully you guys are having a great friday i just finished my friday jiu-jitsu class tough rolls but the rest of the day is going to be a lot easier when you're defending

chokes and limb breaks and things like that so thanks so much for being on the KevTalks podcast, for going to KevTalksPod.com. Follow me on Instagram, at PenelkG, P-E-N-E-L-L-K-G. And we will see you next week. Remember, have a plan, stay informed,

get involved. Bye.