design-an-escalation-path

# design-an-escalation-path Escalation transfers attention and authority, not ownership of the facts. ## When to use - Use for service, project, safety, security, customer, vendor, legal, financial, or people issues. - Do not require people to escalate through a person implicated in misconduct, retaliation, or conflict. ## Procedure 1. Define issue categories, severity, harm, time sensitivity, materiality, and mandatory escalation triggers. 2. Map first response, specialist, management, executive, independent, emergency, and external paths. 3. Assign role-based primary and backup contacts, authority, availability, acknowledgment, and action service levels. 4. Specify the minimum evidence, safe communication, privacy, and need-to-know rules. 5. Provide alternate and protected paths for conflict, absence, accessibility, language, safeguarding, and retaliation concerns. 6. Define response actions, status cadence, handoff, decision record, de-escalation, and closure criteria. 7. Rehearse urgent, out-of-hours, conflicted, failed-contact, and cross-jurisdiction cases. 8. Review missed triggers, delays, false escalations, user harm, and outdated contacts. ## Done - An escalation matrix and test report record triggers, levels, contacts, backups, authority, service levels, channels, alternatives, and closure - Trigger, contact, conflict, accessibility, out-of-hours, response-time, handoff, rehearsal, and update checks verify the path