German quality systems permit departure from a documented procedure where it is justified, assessed and recorded. Deviating is allowed. Deviating silently is not.
The change request
Der Änderungsantrag. A change to a German project plan goes through a formal request: what is to change, why, what it costs, what it moves, who approves. The plan can be changed. It cannot be drifted away from.
The service path
The service path. The German term for the prescribed sequence through which a matter travels upward. Going around it — am Dienstweg vorbei — is itself a breach, separate from whatever the underlying complaint was.