Escalation: the process of enlisting the help of higher level project leadership or management to remove an obstacle, clarify or reinforce priorities, and validate next steps
Escalation email best practices
- Maintain a friendly tone (greeting the recipients): Consider opening your email with a simple show of goodwill, such as “I hope you’re doing well.”, After all, you are asking for the recipient’s help. Be sure to close your email by thanking the recipient for their time
- State your connection to the project (briefly introduce yourself) : if you have less familiarity with the project stakeholders. Be sure to clearly state your name, role, and relationship to the project/ you can simply reinforce your responsibility on the project before getting straight to the problem
- Explain the problem (at hand): Clearly state the problem, Provide enough context (as concise as possible)
- Explain (Outline) the consequences: Describe specifically how this issue is negatively impacting the project or how it has the potential to negatively impact the project later in the project timeline
- Make a request (central piece): propose a solution (or solutions) and state what you need from the recipient
Escalation is a useful skill for solving problems quickly.