PROJECTS
Contents |
Introduction
Every aspect of business today is dominated, perhaps invisibly, by projects and project management. Simply defined a project is a set of tasks that will, when completed, achieve an objective. Whether your objective is to enter data into a database, fulfill a Work Order or interpret a set of seismic data, it will be met when you have completed a set of tasks correctly. Hopefully, you have a clear understanding of what tasks need to be completed before you get started (in other words, we assume you know how to do your job!).
Managing projects effectively involves a tremendous amount of effort in tracking resources and their allocations, funding and budgets, timelines and schedules and communication. PC based tools to help with project management abound; it is not the intention of the PPDM database to replicate these systems or eliminate a need for Project Management tools.
Explorationists are charged with developing models to explore for new hydrocarbon reserves in areas of unknown accumulations and exploit reserves in areas of known accumulations.
Suppose, for example, an exploration team has developed a prospect involving an oil-bearing sandstone pinchout. To test their idea, they propose that several seismic lines be shot over the prospective area. Following submission of an AFE and acquisition and evaluation of the seismic data, they drill several wells on lands jointly owned with another company. They also hire a well site consultant to evaluate cores and chips and a service company to log the wells and run DSTs.
Once a project such as this is created, they will find it useful to keep track of well interpretations, which company shot the seismic data, funding for the project, and all other information related to the project. The Projects Module in PPDM allows oil and gas companies to track data associated with their projects.
Among the most mission critical uses of the project module are support for work flow and unstructured data. Tracking which documents have been used in a work flow, what was done to them, who did it and where the document may be found provides important support for legislation such as PIPEDA in Canada and Sarsbane-Oxley in the US.
PPDM work group activities over the past four years have highlighted some important aspects of Project Management that can benefit from closer integration with a PPDM database:
- Association between projects and business objects in PPDM: Explicit connections between seismic sets, land rights, contracts, electronic information, physical products, wells, facilities and a project provides important information for geoscientists, managers and other specialists.
- Workflow planning: The ability to create project templates or plans is important to members who can use them to standardize processes for certain activities.
- Workflow management: This involves the scheduling and completion of specific tasks.
More information about work flows can be found at the website of the Workflow Management Coalition.
Business Process Overview
Purpose
The Projects Module provides a means of describing and managing information about projects and their completion. This data is created throughout a project life cycle, from planning through completion.
Description
Projects are created for many reasons. Seismic service companies may use them to support work processes related to fulfilling a Work Order. Land groups may create a project to manage the disposition of a set of land holdings. Facility managers may create maintenance projects to track how and when maintenance operations are required. E & P projects are created to evaluate, explore, or generate production revenue. An idea generated by an explorationist is approved by managers, and a project plan, together with supporting funding (AFE), is created. Over time, one or more land holdings may be acquired, for example, and seismic data may be acquired for the project. It is useful to keep track of what information and data were used or created by a project. The Projects module was designed to allow you to create and manage high level information about these projects and provide explicit links to business objects in the model.
Key Business Processes
Project Planning
Project plans or templates can be created to support activities that should be standardized. By creating a reference or template project plan, you can indicate key steps that must be completed and the order in which they should be completed. As you actually conduct the project, you may find that circumstances require some steps to be redone or changed slightly. You can use the model to capture these variations.
Staffing, Funding, and Tracking Information Used or Created
Once a project is created, you may need to engage the services of a contractor or specialist. In our Exploration example you may need the services of a seismic acquisition company, logging company, or well site geologist. You also need to submit an AFE for these expenses. In addition, if you drill five wells in two years, you may use different logging companies or the same company more than once. The logging company may also perform well testing services. You will find it useful to track actual and budgeted costs, who was associated with the project, what roles they played, when they played the roles, and how many times they performed the role. All these activities can be tracked in the Projects Module.
Project Tracking
When you first begin a project, you should create an outline of project steps. If you have created a project plan template, you can use this template to generate your first draft of the actual project outline. Assign resources and due dates to each task. Dependencies between tasks allow you to develop critical paths, or paths that determine the final timeline of the project. Critical dates are dates by when a project step must be completed; these dates may be created to ensure that the project stays on target or based on externally driven events. People or organizations are assigned roles in the project and associated with specific tasks. As you complete each task, you can track who completed the task and what role they played in that step. Associate important business objects, such as documents, to the project as needed. You can also associate the project with relevant land rights, seismic, wells, production information etc as needed.
Reusing Project Data
Projects may be active for a while, then may be inactive for several years. For example, suppose you started a drilling project in 1995, and after 5 years of inactivity, you want to drill additional wells. You want to find the well interpretations completed previously and determine who completed them. To accommodate such a scenario, you need to store the project data in a way that will allow you to examine the data from the previous project.
