Knowing when to escalate is a skill. Escalate too early and you waste senior resources. Escalate too late and you prolong the outage.
Escalate when:
- Problem exceeds your access or permissions
- Issue is outside your expertise area
- Vendor support is needed
- Time limit approached without resolution
Before escalating:
Document what you tried and results
Gather relevant logs and captures
Identify the specific help needed
Escalation paths:
- Technical: to senior engineers
- Management: for resources or decisions
- Vendor: for product-specific issues