In this episode's conclusion to "The 8 Biggest Problems" podcast, Cadence president John Patton brings you problem number eight in the series: Project Managers are Passive.

"In some companies, this is problem number one. I've saved it until problem number one, however, because I want to underscore it's importance."

There's a core confusion in organizations between coordination and leadership. A coordinator assists the project manager in the logistical needs and support of the project. "They're describing the wake at the rear of the boat," says Patton. They are not project leaders.

On the other hand, project managers are well prepared with excuses defending poor project performance. "One of the most common," says Patton, "'This project was delayed due to circumstances beyond my control.' If it's out of their control, how could they possibly steer the project around it?"

This time, in "The 8 Biggest Problems" podcast, Cadence founder John Patton brings you problem number seven in the series: Changes to cost, schedule, and performance are not controlled.

Even project teams with the best intentions suffer the challenges of "Scope Creep," says Patton, and there are a number of contributing factors. For example, project team members often don't have a complete understanding of projects during the planning phase and make changes to the work they're doing past the half-way point of the project. Project managers agree to changes without due process, in an effort to provide good customer service, without understanding the changes being requested.

"Managers are uncomfortable with limits," Patton says. "They want the flexibility to make changes when they think of them because they live in a world which is constantly changing and they're constantly making adjustments to provide better customer service, better service to their clients in this living operating environment."

However, a muddy change process becomes a circle that causes the schedule to slip, tasks to be late, and has a potentially negative overall project impact.

This time, Patton describes a process for addressing Task, Deliverable and Project level change to maintain efficiency and understanding while maintaining control over Cost, Schedule, and Performance variables on the project and respecting project authority.

"The people who complained the most about scope creep are the people who make the changes" Patton says. "Those are the project managers and the team members."

A common stumbling-block for companies appears well into the project planning and implementation stage, when roles have been decided but actual responsibility at the task level is lacking. We have detailed several causes and effects below, along with a best-practice solution to help you ensure that your project has the greatest possible chance of success.

While the overall project aim, timeline, team, and roles may have been defined, often the tasks that are needed to move the entire project forward are not sufficiently detailed. Some necessary tasks may be overlooked altogether and others are not assigned to the appropriate person.

The solution for this is to have a constantly-updated chart where the individual tasks are clearly detailed, along with the team member responsible for each one and a completion date.