Unlocking unknown territory - Inside Knowledge

Feature

posted 1 Nov 1999 in Volume 3 Issue 3

Unlocking unknown territory

Far from losing its power as a practical management tool, knowledge management is proving its worth even in one of the last known places on earth. Davey Jones' locker is being unlocked for all its potential, and here Michael Mahaffie explains the role of KM as an aid to competitive advantage in the race for new discoveries.

The Deepwater represents one of the last true exploration and production frontiers for the oil and gas industry. The recent published announcements touting the large (1 billion barrel plus) discoveries made by the likes of Exxon, British Petroleum-Amoco, Elf, and Shell attest to the opportunities that lie awaiting those companies willing to tackle the technical and economic factors of the Deepwater arena. Despite the attractive volumes and lightly explored acreage, the challenges that face the explorers of today remain large, as the costs to 'play the deepwater game' can be quite expensive. As a result, the rapid dissemination and deployment of knowledge targeted to address these issues is essential for attaining the breakthrough performance in the competitive business climate of Deepwater. Duplication, non-standardization, limited knowledge/information access and successful practice implementation are common barriers that hamper this overall effort. One goal of Knowledge Management is to develop the social systems integrated with technologies and process in order to break down these 'barriers' and thus more effectively utilize the intellectual asset of the staff (corporate knowledge). How can Shell harness this knowledge and expertise in order to become successful in the challenging environment of the Deepwater? This question became fundamental as Shell began their efforts to learn more about Knowledge Management and what it could do for Shell. In the following paragraphs, Mike Mahaffie will share some of our experiences in first understanding knowledge management and more importantly, how they started using these practices towards bringing about a fundamental change in the way they do business.

Definition of knowledge management

First of all, what does Knowledge Management mean? Knowledge Management can be viewed as a process for acquiring, organizing, documenting, sharing, and applying knowledge. It involves creating information systems (both social and technology-driven) and organizational structures to make knowledge accessible to people in an organized fashion, so the right information is available to the right people, at the right time, and at the right level of detail. In simple terms, Knowledge Management represents the next stage in the evolution of transforming a company into a highly effective learning organization. What factors led Shell towards pursuing this initiative? A key glaring reality was the realization that business is more dynamic and changing than in the past. In order to keep pace with this continually evolving environment, Shell Deepwater needed to adopt new practices to unleash the full intellectual potential of its staff. Two driving forces that helped to establish the case for action towards embarking on a Knowledge Management strategy included:

1	Business Climate and Organization Restructure

2	Personal needs of the staff.

Business climate and organizational restructuring

The resurgence of activity into the Global Deepwater play has been fuelled to a large extent by the successes occurring within the deepwater areas of the Gulf of Mexico. Announced discoveries and world class flow rates from producing fields (e.g. Auger, Mars, and Ram Powell) provided encouragement for industry to re-enter this challenging environment. As a result, a key question facing Shell management was how to maintain the competitive edge and learn faster than our competition? A second factor was the rapid changes in technologies and tools available to help interpret the subsurface more accurately and efficiently. How can Shell staff keep pace with the constantly raising bar of technology? An additional factor was the implications resulting from the changes with our organizational structure. Shell Deepwater had undergone a significant change organizationally, shifting from a formerly functional-based system of separate Exploration and Production units to an asset-based organization comprising multi-disciplinary teams designed around the work process. Early benefits from this design include reduced cycle time from early prospect through to discovery and first production; reduced handoffs due to better communication across formerly separate discipline boundaries, and better understanding of the individual s impact on business (each employee can better see his/her particular role in the entire exploration and production lifecycle). It became apparent over time, however, that the shift from a former function-based organization to an asset-based organization resulted in some unexpected implications. Although communication within these multi-disciplinary teams dramatically improved, sharing across the teams was greatly hampered because they became more inwardly focused. Issues common to all teams were not being shared or addressed in a collaborative manner. The multi-disciplinary teams had now become the new silos within the organization. Secondly, the individual disciplines, formerly organized by skill group, found it increasingly difficult to share and discuss with colleagues concerning issues or interpretations. These discipline groups were looking for a 'home base' to maintain the skills, techniques, and practices of their particular craft.

People drivers

Running in parallel with the business drivers listed above was the needs and desires of the staff. Numerous surveys and discussions with individuals in the organization led to the identification of key information gaps. These gap areas include:

People having trouble finding data and invest a great amount of time searching for it

When documents were found, thought processes behind the decisions were often not recorded

People generally have limited time to document and generally were not rewarded or recognized for the effort

People had no formal process for knowing what to document (including what level of detail was needed).

The issue facing Shell became one of addressing both the business and people drivers to ensure that all aspects of the organization were using the best information and knowledge to support the Deepwater business strategy.

Next steps

In order to capitalize on these findings and the vast knowledge that exists within Shell's Deepwater organization, a Knowledge Management strategy was adopted which comprised the following key elements. Our first focus area was on the formation of people networks and knowledge communities; technology is an important enabler for transferring and sharing learning's efficiently but it cannot begin without the support of the people and the knowledge they have to share. Secondly, where appropriate, managed knowledge repositories were constructed to help assist in the capture and dissemination of successful practices and key insights. As these knowledge repositories grew, it became apparent that more sophisticated IT tools were needed to better address the capture, management and dissemination of learning's across the organization. Lastly, as the value of networking became apparent, our efforts focused towards addressing the culture to support, encourage and reward sharing and collaboration. A new attitude that recognizes the power of collective sharing of knowledge rather than the traditional attitude that personal knowledge is power was strongly emphasized.

Some first steps in people networks

In our strategy geared towards developing people networks, it became increasingly clear that understanding the knowledge needs of the community was essential for choosing the right knowledge management solution. For example, the upstream activities associated with Deepwater Exploration rely on the sharing of interpretation experiences across the globe to provide the best in class lessons on overall play development. Understanding the 'interpretation craft' requires well-developed people systems in order to share the tacit 'hard to get to' experiences and lessons of what worked / didn't work. We found this environment for sharing and learning occurs best at the local level where issues are more easily elevated and sharing is more likely to take place (where relationships are more firmly established and the trust level between staff is generally high). In order to increase the global connection among these local communities, simple-to-use electronic discussion boards were made available on Shell's intranet system. These discussion forums provide a way for local communities and individuals alike, to post key questions or issues to the global community in order to tap into collective knowledge of the organization. As the activity on these discussion boards increased, hub coordinators were assigned to help moderate the knowledge sharing. In this role, coordinators were responsible for setting the environment for sharing / learning; assisting in the capture of key insights and discussions, and helping to connect these experiences with other global activities across the organization.

To illustrate, one community of practice at our New Orleans office holds regularly scheduled meetings and captures the insights shared from the proceedings. Over time, these individual insights are catalogued into related topics or themes commonly tied to the business work process. Through careful review of these individual insights, we have found that key practices and principles emerge which can be universally adapted by the global interpretation community. These 'gems' are then organized within an evolving website (or other enabling tool) in order to capture the successful practices (standards) that have been developed as well as preserve the logical thinking behind related topics. The success of these activities has aligned our Knowledge Management strategy towards supporting several of these interpreter-based resources with the goal of elevating the working knowledge of the global Deepwater staff.

Knowledge reuse via standardization

In contrast, most of the activities associated with Development Systems Business units of Shell Deepwater (project engineering) are focused on standardization and knowledge reuse. Much of the knowledge needed by these communities can be more easily shared explicitly through standards and procedures. Electronic document management systems have been installed to address the managing and organizing of these standard practices and procedures. To encourage the use of these practices across each new project, a formal process of 'successful practice implementation' has been designed to encourage teams to review previous experience before customizing their own solutions. In this way, we are attempting to instill a spirit of 'learning from others' rather than reinventing the wheel. In order to keep these practices evergreen, learning workshops and After Action Reviews are conducted following the completion of major milestone events within the projects to ensure that practices and principles are updated with the latest learnings.

Insights from a practitioner

Over the past several years as we have been embarking on this Knowledge Management effort, several lessons have stood out as key elements to our implementation efforts. These can be summarized in the following paragraphs:

Collaborative thinking requires building relationships and trust within the community
The key component for establishing an effective people strategy for any Knowledge Management effort is the recognition of the importance of building relationships and trust between your community members. Without trust, people are generally unwilling to become transparent enough to share the meaningful aspects regarding their experience (the rich tacit information that often derives the most value) or worse, mislead or provide false information. Relationships and trust building take time but the efforts are worth the cost.

Set an environment to promote people involvement, sharing and learning
A key component to successful learning community development is setting the appropriate dynamics or environment for sharing. Facilitation skills are extremely important to provide a setting of inclusion and trust. A common fault for many new communities is the appointment of leading subject matter experts as focal points or facilitators for the community. Commonly, these individuals will take it upon themselves (as already established experts in the subject area) to address many of the issues or problems that the individual community members bring to the floor. Unfortunately, this reaction is exactly opposite to the role of the learning community facilitator. Instead of receiving and responding directly to problems or issues presented, learning facilitators should be reflectors of the issues, working to draw out insights and perspectives from the other members of the community. In the role of the Knowledge broker, he/she can draw upon the context of the discussion, tap into local experts or practitioners who have firsthand experience around the issue and more effectively lead and engage the remaining community into discussion, dialogu and sharing. This role requires the community leader to be kept abreast of work activities of their community members, knowing when to push out areas or topics of discussion to the appropriate individuals.

Define and strive to achieve the personal value proposition to sustain community involvement
The glue that holds learning communities together is the personal value proposition. If the activity that you provide does not exceed the value of another activity a person might be engaged in, you will not be able to sustain the involvement need to become a learning community. As the community of practitioners evolves and matures, the dynamics of the proposition changes from personal value to community accountability. As communities begin to address problems or issues others have brought forth, the purpose of the membership changes from primarily a helping - problem solving community to one which is empowered to make strategic decisions regarding the direction of the subject under discussion.

Focus on things that matter - the pain principle
People naturally gravitate towards others when dealing with an issue or problem. This is true in our personal lives as well as professional / business activities. Finding like individuals who are either dealing with a similar problem or who have previously dealt with a common problem represent resources to begin dialog and discussions. Our human nature is to do whatever possible to reduce the amount of discomfort or pain in our given situation. These pain points in the organization represent excellent settings for identifying pre-existing communities or establishing new communities.

It is hoped that by sharing this experience as well as insights, we have provided an important testimony to the value and business impact that knowledge sharing is making at Shell. As learning is a continual process, we too continue to strive to do better at leveraging the collective knowledge at Shell towards business performance improvement.

Michael Mahaffie is a Knowledge Manager within Shell Exploration & Production International Inc. - Deepwater Services. He can be contacted at: mjmahaffie@shellus.com