When to escalate

Michael Bookatz

So I thought I'd do a straw poll of the people here and ask when do you escalate a problem you have at work. I've been waiting for a senior developer to deliver something for almost two weeks now and each time I ask him a about it he says should be by end of the day. I've spoken to my boss about it and he told me I should just keep chasing. In the end I escalated it further and magically ti was delivered within 10 minutes. But I don't know if I've caused bad blood. Thank you

PIEBALDconsult

It sounds like your team needs to have weekly meetings where such bottlenecks can be detected and resolved.

Ennis Ray Lynch Jr

The buck stops here. Seriously, though, in the past if a "senior" dev is snowballing your progress just ask the PM for permission to do the specific item yourself. Then in the meeting describe how thankful you were that the "senior" dev allowed you to help him to help prevent the political battel.

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Michael Bookatz

sounds like a good idea - but don't think it's going to happen especially with the senior dev in a different country.

Lost User

Our tracking system allows you to set a due date.. Escalate if your due date isn't met.

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R Giskard Reventlov

Sounds like the developer believes you to be weak so put you off for as long as he/she could get away with it. You have not created bad blood: the developer has no respect for you anyway.

me, me, me

Dan Neely

Are time zones too different to make it a telecon?

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Vasudevan Deepak Kumar

At least in India, you can find tons of such crappy lazy arses. The ultimate billable product value can not be jeopardized because of that. Pull out the chair and get him started on the job right in front of you. A little eagle-watching (or policing) is indeed required to ensure that project date is not screwed up.

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Tech Gossips
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Dario Solera

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar wrote:

At least in India on Earth, you can find tons of such crappy lazy arses.

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realJSOP

hopingToCode wrote:

But I don't know if I've caused bad blood.

It depends on the level of maturity of the senior programmer. Personally, I escalate after three requests for action.

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Vikram A Punathambekar

Why do you think India has a monopoly on this kind of people?

Cheers, Vikram.

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Chris Austin

hopingToCode wrote:

So I thought I'd do a straw poll of the people here and ask when do you escalate a problem you have at work.

I'd escalate the moment the problem appears to affect my ability to get my portion done on time without having to work asinine hours.

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Chris Austin

Trollslayer wrote:

Escalate if your due date isn't met.

It's too late then isn't it?

Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

I escalate after three requests for action.

I agree. But there are more sensitive occasions wherein even such mercy towards dilly-dallying can not be tolerated. For me, if my Todolist (www.codeproject.com/KB/applications/todolist2.aspx) says the task is overdue and if I find such blocking calls, I don't see any valid reason(s) whatsoever to hold back my escalation request.

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Vasudevan Deepak Kumar

Lot of quick examples which we can immediatly cite on the same though not for fault-finding but at least for as on the learner's gesture with the goal that such attitude should avoided by us.

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep!

Dario Solera

Maybe the morons/total people ratio in India is the same as in the rest of the world, but given that India accounts for - how much? - 1/6 of world's population, the absolute number of morons is pretty high. But this reasoning also goes for geniuses (there are a lot of excellent scientists from India, right?).

If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. - Charlie Brooker My Photos/CP Flickr Group - ScrewTurn Wiki

Chris Maunder

How important was your problem vs. the 50 problems your team lead may have been trying to deal with?

cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

Michael Bookatz

At least tell me and let me know instead of everyday saying it will be done today. For example. someone came upto e this afternoon and said I have this problem can you look at it and I said I won't have time today but should be able to do it tomorrow. Say that!

Todd Smith

It could be supply and demand. If the demand is very high in India for tech people they probably have to lower their standards to meet the demand. This happened in a restaurant I worked at while in college. During a certain time of year it was hard to find people to work so management finally had to lower their standards to fill the spots. So this new guy is carrying a tray of food to his table and as he's putting the tray down on the stand a batch of fries slide off the plate and onto the tray (which isn't very sanitary btw). What does he do? Right in front of the customers he picks up the fries, places them back on the plate then serves them to the customer. While he might not be lazy, he certainly was stupid and below standards for such a restaurant. Management had to profusely apologize to the customers, give them a free meal and fired the guy on the spot. At the end of the day, people are people and stupidity is everywhere.

Todd Smith

Todd Smith

How do you know he doesn't have a list of 10 other items which aren't higher priority? It's hard to say without more details. But at the very least tell your boss what you need and leave it up to him to escalate the problem as they see fit. And keep him up to date on status and progress. Unfortunately sometimes things need to fail before something is done about it. Just make sure you don't look bad in the process.

Todd Smith