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Product Management vocabulary · Team & Stakeholder Communication

Escalate

Meaning in product management, with examples

/ˈeskəleɪt/verbCommon term

In product management, escalate means: To take a problem or disagreement to a more senior person because it cannot be solved at the current level or is becoming urgent.

In Turkish: üst kademeye taşımak, eskale etmek, yukarıya iletmek

How it is used

Escalating is a normal step, not a failure, when it is done early and calmly with clear options. PMs escalate blockers, conflicting priorities and serious customer issues. The noun is escalation.

Example sentences

  1. If the platform team can't give us a date by Friday, I'll escalate it to the VP.

  2. The customer escalated the bug to their account manager.

Common collocations

  • escalate an issue
  • escalate to leadership
  • escalation path
  • escalate quickly
  • stakeholderAny person or group inside or outside the company who is affected by a product decision or can influence it, such as executives, sales, support or legal.
  • dependencyA piece of work that cannot start or finish until something else, often owned by another team or company, is done first.
  • push backTo disagree with or resist a request, decision or deadline, usually politely and with reasons; also, to move a date to later.
  • status updateA short, regular report that tells stakeholders what has been done, what is coming next and what risks or blockers exist.
  • triageTo review incoming bugs, requests or issues quickly and sort them by urgency and importance, deciding which to handle now, later or not at all.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Team & Stakeholder Communication

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