Because of task interdependency, complex projects can only move away from a missed step if they know the forgotten stuff until the project is stopped or critically impacted. The art of project management is the ability to control critical resources $($Jacobs & Chase, $2020).$ For example, as a director, I was responsible for many projects. I had project managers working for me$,$ and they were responsible for the details of the project. In one project, we relocated some equipment to lower work in progress. During the construction phase, a production manager asked my project manager to make a slight alteration to the layout that would make the employee break room larger by about $2$ feet along an $8-$foot section of the room. The project manager decided that was a good idea, so he just made the change. Three weeks later, the city inspector shut down the entire project. The reason was that the $2-$foot extension lowered the warehouse$-$to$-$production space ratio below the city requirements. The project manager thought he could change the layout slightly without impacting anything. This misstep of not getting layout approval cost us a week of work and the project manager's job. The problem was that the change was made three weeks before the city inspector shut down the job.

Sometimes the key to knowing a step has been missed comes much later than the actual missing the step.

What would have been a better course for this project manager to take when faced with a change request?