ADVISORY ARTICLE
By Harold Kerzner, Ph.D. and Al Zeitoun, Ph.D.
California and Maryland, USA
BACKGROUND TO EXECUTIVE INVOLVEMENT IN PROJECTS _______________
All project managers desire to complete their projects successfully and with minimum disruptions. Unfortunately, the same project managers know there will be challenges and issues and hope the project team can successfully address them without having to involve the senior levels of management.
In the early years of project management, most project managers had technical backgrounds and were comfortable solving primarily technical challenges on projects. Executives were assigned as project sponsors to assist with business-related project decision-making problems. Sponsors also addressed many of the human resources and team staffing issues. Project managers felt reasonably comfortable continuously bringing most of these problems to the sponsors for hopefully quick resolution rather than asking the project team for help.
Executive project sponsorship began taking a toll on senior management that had to commit more time than expected to sponsorship, thus neglecting their primary duties. Some companies pushed sponsorship down in the hierarchy to middle-management levels or project management offices and project management centers of excellence. Other companies established sponsorship training programs, but in most companies, senior managers were reluctant to attend sponsorship training. Some senior managers were fearful that performing as a sponsor on a project that might fail could damage their career.
Today, with the growth in project management practices and investments in more projects requiring innovation and creativity, the need for executive involvement in critical problem decision-making efforts has increased. However, companies are now clearly defining what escalation means and are creating a structured approach as to how the escalation process should work.
TYPES OF ISSUES REQUIRING ESCALATION _____________________________
As reflected by Figure 1, in project management, escalation is the process of bringing an issue or problem to higher levels of management or the most relevant stakeholders when the problem cannot be effectively resolved by the project team or current levels of management. The escalation process makes senior management aware of critical issues. The type of problem should be a situation that is serious enough to impact a successful outcome of the project if not resolved in a timely manner and neither the project manager nor the project team have the authority to resolve the problem. Good escalation practices make senior management aware of problems and help identify people within the organization that possess the authority to resolve the problems.
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How to cite this article: Kerzner, H., Zeitoun, A. (2026). The Art of Escalating to Senior Management, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue II, February. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/pmwj161-Feb2026-Kerzner-Zeitoun-Art-of-Escalation.pdf
About the Authors
Harold Kerzner, Ph.D., MS, M.B.A
Senior Executive Director for Project Management
International Institute of Learning
New York & California, USA
Dr. Harold Kerzner is Senior Executive Director for Project Management for the International Institute for Learning (IIL). He has an MS and Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Utah State University. He is a prior Air Force Officer and spent several years at Morton-Thiokol in project management. He taught engineering at the University of Illinois and business administration at Utah State University, and for 38 years taught project management at Baldwin-Wallace University. He has published or presented numerous engineering and business papers and has had published more than 60 college textbooks/workbooks on project management, including later editions. Some of his books are (1) Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling; (2) Project Management Metrics, KPIs and Dashboards, (3) Project Management Case Studies, (4) Project Management Best Practices: Achieving Global Excellence, (5) PM 2.0: The Future of Project Management, (6) Using the Project Management Maturity Model, and (7) Innovation Project Management.
He is a charter member of the Northeast Ohio PMI Chapter.
Dr. Kerzner has traveled around the world conducting project management lectures for PMI Chapters and companies in Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, Singapore, Korea, South Africa, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Croatia, Mexico, Trinidad, Barbados, The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Venezuela, Columbia, United Arab Emirates, France, Italy, England, and Switzerland. He delivered a keynote speech at a PMI Global Congress on the future of project management.
His recognitions include:
- The University of Illinois granted Dr. Kerzner a Distinguished Recent Alumni Award in 1981 for his contributions to the field of project management.
- Utah State University provided Dr. Kerzner with the 1998 Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to the field of project management.
- The Northeast Ohio Chapter of the Project Management Institute gives out the Kerzner Award once a year to one project manager in Northeast Ohio that has demonstrated excellence in project management. They also give out a second Kerzner Award for project of the year in Northeast Ohio.
- The Project Management Institute (National Organization) in cooperation with IIL has initiated the Kerzner International Project Manager of the Year Award given to one project manager yearly anywhere in the world that demonstrated excellence in project management.
- The Project Management Institute also gives out four scholarships each year in Dr. Kerzner’s name for graduate studies in project management.
- Baldwin-Wallace University has instituted the Kerzner Distinguished Lecturer Series in project management.
- The Italian Institute of Project Management presented Dr. Kerzner with the 2019 International ISIPM Award for his contributions to the field of project management.
Dr. Harold Kerzner can be contacted at hkerzner@hotmail.com
Dr. Al Zeitoun, PgMP, PMI Fellow
System Thinker & Transformation Advisor
Maryland USA
Dr. Al Zeitoun is a Future of Work, business optimization, and operational performance excellence thought leader with global experiences in strategy execution. His experiences encompass leading organizations; delivering their Enterprise Digital and Business Transformation; guiding fitting frameworks implementations; and using his empathy, engineering insights, and collaboration strengths to successfully envision new business models and execute complex missions across diverse cultures globally.
In his recent role with Siemens, he was a Senior Director of Strategy responsible for driving the global program management practices, Master Plan governance, and enabling the Strategy Transformation processes and priorities.
In his position, as the Executive Director for Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, Abu Dhabi, UAE, he was responsible for creating the strategy execution framework, achieving transformation benefits, governance excellence, and creating the data analytics discipline necessary for delivering on the $40B complex country energy mission roadmap.
At the McLean, USA HQ of Booz Allen Hamilton, Dr. Zeitoun strategically envisioned and customized digitally enabled EPMO advisory, mapped playbooks, and capability development for clients’ Billions of Dollars strategic initiatives. Furthermore, he led the firm’s Middle East North Africa Portfolio Management and Agile Governance Solutions.
With the International Institute of Learning, Dr. Zeitoun played a senior leader and global trainer and coach. He was instrumental in driving its global expansions, thought leadership, and operational excellence methodology to sense and shape dynamic ways of working across organizations worldwide. He speaks English, Arabic, and German and enjoys good food, travel, and volunteering. Dr. Al Zeitoun can be contacted at zeitounstrategy@gmail.com
