When to escalate:

From One Of the Best Project Managers You'll Ever Meet

"Some Project Managers believe that bringing issues to the attention of high-level stakeholders makes the Project Manager seem incapable, so they’ll only escalate issues when they have no choice but to do so. This makes high-level stakeholders worry that unseen problems are constantly mounting within the project, and they dread that at any moment a Project Manager will suddenly appear to tell them about a problem that requires their immediate attention.
In truth, most major issues spring from minor issues that have been overlooked or ignored for a long period of time, until they grow to the point that people are forced to deal with them. When this finally occurs few options to mitigate the problem remain, so project teams hold long, stressful emergency meetings and desperately scramble about trying to resolve it.
I believe Project Managers have a duty to immediately escalate all issues that might significantly impact the project if it appears those issues might be realized. I do this by simply including a “Potential Issues” section in my online project dashboard and in my written reports; I describe an issue and its expected impacts, as well as the steps my team is taking to monitor and resolve it. I also employ a simple color-coding system as follows:

Green – The issue isn’t causing any problems yet, and the project team has it under control and is working to resolve it.
Yellow – The issue has grown beyond the project team’s ability to control or resolve it, and high-level stakeholder assistance will be required if the issue continues to grow.
Red – The issue is currently causing or will inevitably cause problems for the project, and high-level stakeholder assistance is needed to resolve it.

This methodology gives high-level stakeholders plenty of time to consider and formulate responses to an issue, so when an issue goes from yellow to red no one is surprised and everyone is amply prepared to resolve it. Also, it’s clear to high-level stakeholders that the project team is actively seeking out and remedying issues instead of concealing them, and this greatly increases their confidence in the project’s success.

Lastly, this methodology enables stakeholders to monitor issues as much or as little as they wish. Some review all the issues, while many just glance at the green issues and focus instead on the yellows and reds. I have used this methodology with high-level stakeholders including CIOs, and no one has yet complained that I was wasting their time with needless information."

- Eric Simms, PMP