OPS03-BP03 Escalation is encouraged

Team members have mechanisms and are encouraged to escalate concerns to decision makers and stakeholders if they believe outcomes are at risk. Escalation should be performed early and often so that risks can be identified, and prevented from causing incidents.

Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established: High

Implementation guidance

• Encourage early and frequent escalation: Organizationally acknowledge that escalation early and often is the best practice. Organizationally acknowledge and accept that escalations may prove to be unfounded, and that it is better to have the opportunity to prevent an incident then to miss that opportunity by not escalating.

  • Have a mechanism for escalation: Have documented procedures defining when and how escalation should occur. Document the series of people with increasing authority to take action or approve action and their contact information. Escalation should continue until the team member is satisfied that they have handed off the risk to a person able to address it, or they have contacted the person who owns the risk and liability for the operation of the workload. It is that person who ultimately owns all decisions with respect to their workload. Escalations should include the nature of the risk, the criticality of the workload, who is impacted, what the impact is, and the urgency, that is, when is the impact expected.

  • Protect employees who escalate: Have policy that protects team members from retribution if they escalate around a non-responsive decision maker or stakeholder. Have mechanisms in place to identify if this is occurring and respond appropriately.