escalationlisted

# Escalation: making the ask someone can grant Escalation is a service to the decider, not an act of aggression. The [program premortem](../program-premortem/SKILL.md) names the disease as failure mode 3, governance without decision rights: forums that receive updates but cannot kill, fund, or resequence anything. Naming the disease is not a procedure. This skill is the procedure: a brief a decider can act on in five minutes, routed to someone who actually holds the decision, with the outcome recorded where the next person can find it. ## Files this skill drives - [../../templates/execution/decision-log.md](../../templates/execution/decision-log.md), where the outcome lands, granted or declined - [../../templates/execution/risk-register.md](../../templates/execution/risk-register.md), which absorbs a declined or deferred ask as an owned, accepted risk - Reads: [../../templates/execution/stakeholder-map.md](../../templates/execution/stakeholder-map.md) for who holds which decision, and [../../templates/execution/dependency-register.md](../../templates/execution/dependency-register.md) for the escalation contacts it names ## When to use - A decision has a needed-by date and the date passed, or will pass before the current forum meets again - Two teams deadlock and the dispute path in [triad decision rights](../../knowledge/roles/triad-decision-rights.md) ran out of road - A risk or dependency owner acknowledges the item and does not act - Your steering forum has "noted" th