This is where "The presumption should be that the engineer used due diligence and the situation was unforeseen" clause enters into play. I've seen many folks i

This is where "The presumption should be that the engineer used due diligence and the situation was unforeseen" clause enters into play. I've seen many folks in management just always assume incompetence or rabbit holing on the part of engineers. It's good to ask clarifying questions. But as a manager you should be aware that adopting a style of second guessing and interrogating everything your reports do comes off as insulting - after all, you likely hired them, so why don't you trust them? That being said there are no hard and fast rules here, and being aware of the different histories of different folks is important, but defaulting to a critical attitude is likely to lead to all types of efforts to hide things from you just to avoid questioning, feeling insulted, having their time wasted, etc.