Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

It has been a while since I last blogged and has primarily been down to the relatively sedate pace of life up in Aberdeen. In an attempt to prove I haven’t gone native, I thought I would pen a few points and observations I have made over the last month or so.

Continual Uncertainty

The oil & gas industry is still in a bad place and not likely to recover for a while. Woodgroup (whom provide a lot of engineering services to the BP Projects & Mods team) announced a couple of weeks ago that further job losses will be required and uncertainty exists as to what that exactly means. Last week they also announced that their engineering teams based in Aberdeen will be moving to Glasgow in order to reduce costs and increase productivity; so what? For me, it will almost certainly mean frequent commutes to Glasgow in order to better coordinate projects.

BP itself is continuing its drive to improve efficiency throughout the entire organisation and a ‘town hall’ with Trevor Garlick, the Regional President put it in perspective. When looking at North Sea producers, BP currently sits in the bottom third in terms of cost per barrel to extract at around $37 per barrel, even if that was reduced to say mid-twenties, BP would only rank in the middle third. This is primarily due to the huge overheads BP has because of the size of the organisation; BP cannot compete with the smaller independent oil producers in the North Sea. In order to save money, budgets have been cut and are expected to be reduced further next year including the P&M budget.

Procedures

After initially being impressed with the documented processes and procedures that exist, it now seems that BP staff understands them in the same way we understand AFM, SOHB et al. We know they are there and roughly what they are about but they are not always fully understood, at times don’t support each other and may not be up to date.

When you are both behind schedule and will finish early

There is currently a project being executed offshore to deliver an additional lifeboat so that there can be an increased number of pax working on the platform at any one time. The project started in early Mar and was scheduled to complete in 4 weeks. As you can see from the S-curve below the project is about 7% behind schedule but we have been told that it should be complete in a week; so in a 13 week project the last 23% will be completed in the last week. This is really down to poor forecasting at the beginning of the project by vendors who are completing the installation and final commissioning of the life boat. Arguably it’s not that big a deal as long as it is completed within schedule, but it does raise some eyebrows further up the chain and brings some unwanted questions. So it is not just the army that tries to mould figures to appease higher HQs!!

Timings, Timings, Timings

I know that a few of you have mentioned this in blogs previously, but think it is appropriate to quote Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the black pearl when describing contractor deadlines;

“the code [deadlines] is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules”

In other news

Pregnancy: Still, but I’m the one putting on weight and having food cravings (olives at the moment).

House: moved in, more to follow.

CPD

Brendan and Myself attended a CMI coordinated breakfast, titled ‘Leading in Difficult Times’ which included 3 guest speakers. Lt Col Paul Binnie, Commanding Officer of AUOTC discussed the role of the leader in terms of subordinate development, mission command, clear communication and inspiring your team. Ella Minty, a strategy and change consultant, discussed the concepts of knowing your limits, knowing your boundaries between work and social, seeking results, ambition and real value and fostering challenge, trust and learning, and finished with the  line “if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room”. The final speaker was Bob Keiller, the CEO of Wood Group who played 7 songs and discussed each one in tern;

Black Sabbath – Paranoid

The Temptations – Get Ready

Animals – Don’t let me be understood

The Matches – Needs and Wants

Paper Lace – Don’t be a hero

Elvis – A little less conversation

Crowded house – don’t think it’s over

I’ll let you decide what he meant by each one.