When a project fails, the post-mortem usually points to the end. Misseddeadline. Budget overrun. Scope creep. Stakeholder dissatisfaction.
But the failure rarely starts there. It starts at the beginning, when nobodyasked a simple question: if something goes wrong, who needs to know, and how dothey find out?
That question is an escalation path. And without one, risks sit with thewrong people, decisions get made too late, and by the time leadership is awarethere is a problem, the project is already in recovery mode.
What an escalation path actually is
An escalation path is not a org chart. It is not a RACI. It is the definedroute a risk, issue, or decision takes when it cannot be resolved at the levelwhere it was identified.
It answers three things: who owns this, who do they tell if they cannotresolve it, and how quickly does that need to happen.
Without those three things documented and understood, escalation becomespolitical. People protect their patch. Risks get downgraded to avoiduncomfortable conversations. Issues sit in a log that nobody reads.
The signs it is missing
You are in a project where escalation is broken if any of these sound familiar:
Risks are raised in the weekly call but the same risks appear the followingweek with no change in status. Issues are logged but ownership changesdepending on who is in the room. Senior stakeholders say they were not aware ofa problem that has been in the RAID log for six weeks. Decisions that shouldtake days take weeks because nobody is sure who has the authority to make them.
These are not people problems. They are governance problems. The structuredoes not support good decision making so good decision making does not happen.
What good looks like
A functioning escalation path is documented before the project starts. It ispart of the governance framework, not an afterthought. It defines escalationthresholds, the point at which something moves from operational to seniorleadership visibility. It is tested early so people understand it before theyneed it under pressure.
It does not have to be complicated. A one page escalation matrix with clearownership and timescales is enough to transform how a programme handles risk.
The governance fix
If you are inheriting a programme that is already in flight and you suspectescalation is broken, the fastest diagnostic is to pull the RAID log and lookat issue age. Anything that has been open for more than two weeks without astatus change or owner update is a signal. Anything that has been escalated andthen gone quiet is a red flag.
Fix the path first. Everything else follows.
