Escalation policy
GlossaryWritten by Burak YReviewed by Burak YLast reviewed 3 September 2026
An ordered set of targets, delays, conditions, and stop rules for finding a responder. A complete policy states who is contacted at each step, how long the step waits, whether targets are notified in parallel or in sequence, what conditions branch the path, and what stops the process — usually acknowledgement, resolution, or a manual stop.
In practice
Step one pages the primary and waits five minutes. Step two pages the secondary and the team channel in parallel and waits ten. Step three pages the engineering manager. The policy stops on acknowledgement.