denotes premium content | May 22 2013 Feature
posted 1 Jun 1999 in Volume 2 Issue 9
Virtual
Knowledge
Diversity in technology has transformed BP Amoco into an
effective virtual knowledge pool. Video conferencing, intranets, web cameras,
audio conferencing have all helped to create a dynamic virtual environment where
body language and the unseen nuances vital to clear communication can still
exist. Chris Collison, Catherine Robertson & Robin Yellow outlines the
development of the virtual corporate backbone which transcends 'the dichotomy between
localisation and globalisation.'
Large dinosaurs had small brains... In
1993, British Petroleum underwent a dramatic organisational evolution into a
flat, federal structure of eighty discreet businesses units. CEO Sir John
Browne, who oversaw the transformation believed that that smaller,
semi-autonomous businesses could work more efficiently and creatively, and the
business conditions required an uncompromising emphasis on performance.
In their
ground-breaking book, 'The Knowledge Creating Company'1 ,
Nonaka and Takeuchi remark on 'the importance of transcending the dichotomy
between localisation and globalisation.' This aptly describes the challenge that
Browne faced. How could eighty empowered business units share knowledge and
insights effectively in a delayered company without a middle management layer of
functional experts? The new structure had exposed a deep need - the need to
mobilise and share knowledge across this federal organisation - the need to
create globally available local experts.
At the close of
1994, Browne sponsored a research project entitled 'Virtual Teamwork'(VT), the aim of which was
to create new ways of working through the introduction of new technologies
and behavioural coaching. The programme allowed easy, impromptu
face-to-face discussions with teams in different locations. In this context, 'teams' included
key engineering partners and suppliers, in addition to geographically
distributed BP staff - the project scope deliberately embraced the 'extended
enterprise'.
From a technology stand-point, the project introduced desktop
video-conferencing tools capable of supporting an electronic white-board environment, and tools
for sharing applications in real time. This would enable contractual
iterations, redlining and discussions to occur in real time on a real document, and
support a 'whites of their eyes' level of open communication through video link. A
scanner was added to the environment to support the exchange of paper-based
information, and a Lotus Notes environment - new to many parts of BP at that
time - was included to support asynchronous collaboration.
Behavioural coaching formed a
vital part of the process, whereby staff were individually supported and challenged
to work in new ways, and to consider sharing and collaborating with staff whom
they had never previously been able to meet at this more intimate level.
The combination of effective communication and appropriate tools
significantly improved the effectiveness of these teams. 'At first we were quite concerned
about people dropping into our office from all over the world, but we managed to
get over that. The ease of communication that this has given us has enabled us
to work far more effectively with our design engineers and reduce our normal
down time. We get a very, very quick resolution of any problems we have, which
in turn has helped us to become more efficient and has also reduced manpower
costs. To give some idea, the manning levels at the moment are currently at 50%
of the projected manning levels that we would be running at this time.' At the
close of the project in late 1996, Virtual Teamworking was acclaimed as a highly
successful learning experience, and moved from entrepreneurial experiment to a
formal service offering, available as an option to all staff. Today, over 1200
staff use this environment as an unremarkable part of day-to-day work, directly
from their offices. One critical aspect of work in the virtual organisation is
identification of 'who can help me'.2
Searchable home
pages
BP Amoco make heavy use of an employee-driven
knowledge directory known as Connect, comprising of detailed home pages for nearly
13,000 (20%) staff world-wide. This resource makes it easy for staff with low
intranet editing skills to voluntarily project themselves into the company in a way
which reflects individual preferences. These searchable home pages contain a
spectrum of information, photographs, CVs, work experience, informal personal
interests, contacts and favourite links. As a set of unique intranet pages, Connect
forms the basis of a 'people layer' on the intranet, integrating with countless other
intranet sites - this ubiquity results in high usage. There is a hit on a
Connect page every three seconds, day and night.
The end result is a global,
agile organisation that can mobilise knowledge rapidly, regardless of
business structure and geography. Connect provides the 'who', whilst the suite
of collaboration tools available provides the 'how'. Another critical aspect of
work in the virtual organisation is how to make everyone feel part of the same
team. Even when everyone resides in the same office it still is not easy to
address this problem.
Moving work to people
One of BP
Amoco's latest projects to address virtual teamworking is called 'Moving Work to
People'. Assisted by PA Consulting Group it was set up to investigate ways in which
the performance could be improved through teams working together across
language, cultural and geographical borders. The research part of the 'Moving Work to
People' project which was completed in early 1999 yielded the beginnings of a
nine point Virtual Teamworking Framework which mapped out the distinct phases of
a virtual project: starting, bonding, managing, meeting, working, sharing,
tracking, adjusting and closing.
To look at one element of the model,
'bonding' is based on the need for a virtual team to trust one another. The need
to build trust within a virtual team is many times more important than in a
normal team. Physical proximity to your colleagues allows a person's natural
ability to bond with other people to occur. Other findings include:
1. The EU and Swiss
Government funded 'IMPACT Programme' (www.achieve.ch
) found that
some work styles were more suited to virtual teams than others. They
identified a 'flexible and free' worker and a 'traditional 9 to 5' worker. The 'flexible and free' are
more likely to thrive in a virtual team, however, the discipline of more
traditional work styles is also essential.
2. The Human Communication Research
Centre at Glasgow University found that fun-poking in a virtual team could be
easily misinterpreted. They found that extra special care should be taken when
when using humour directed at individuals within virtual teams.
3. Tools like
Microsoft Chat (IRC Internet Relay Chat) (www.microsoft.com
) can help with the bonding
process. Non-work related email can also be useful. Frivolous email is sometimes
frowned upon in organisations but if you want to build trust and establish
rapport, it can smooth out wrinkles in personal relationships. The same goes for
laughing and joking in video conferences and audio conference calls.
One of the projects
in 'Moving Work to People' is TeamCam currently being tested by several virtual
workgroups. Each virtual team member's computer is equipped with an inexpensive
WebCam that is connected to the parallel port. Every two minutes an image is
uploaded from each camera to a webserver. A web page is created for the team
combining these images into a single page. Anyone who views the page sees the
latest image from each camera. TeamCam is a derivation of the NCR wormhole
project. The wormhole was 'videoconferencing taken to its logical next step' ...
a continuously open lease line between two identical offices in different
cities, so that you can have a meeting any time you want to. With the high
resolution and real-time performance of the link the effect is said to be just
like 'being there'.
Another aspect of 'Moving Work to People' involves
the rollout of British Telecom's Presence data and audiographic conferencing
system (www.syncordia.bt.com) on a similar scale to the VT project. Presence builds
on the features of Microsoft's NetMeeting by adding synchronous audio through
an integrated voice bridge in the server. The result is a virtual meeting that
is like 'looking over a colleague's shoulders'.
BP Amoco's continued investment
in these projects like VT and 'Moving Work to People', supports Browne's vision
of the new organisation as 'a company of individuals' through
high-value connections. Tools such as Desktop Videoconferencing, Connect, TeamCam
and Presence allow BP Amoco to connect the disparate parts of its organisation in
a new and exciting way. Globally available local experts can be a feature of
every virtual team. These new techniques in virtual teamworking do not solve
every problem, but they go a long way to heal the necessary 'delayering surgery' of
yesterday and the continuous change of today. BP Amoco is one of the world's
largest companies, and it continues to grow - organisationally, intellectually
and virtually.
Chris Collison is a Knowledge Management consultant within BP Amoco. He
can be contacted at:colliscj@bp.com
Cath Robertson is Project
Leader - "Moving Work to People" within BP Amoco. She can be contacted at: robertsc@bp.com
Robin Yellow is Principle
Consultant in PA Consulting. He can be contacted at:robin.yellow@pa-consulting.com
| 1 Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi The Knowledge Creating Company (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) |
| 2 Ben Hodson, BP Amoco Exploration - an early adaptor of Virtual Teamworking |
