Global oil & gas company -
Disciplined, robust and sustainable process improvement

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The challenge

Our client established “Process Fitness” to develop world class process expertise, supported by proven process improvement frameworks, tools and methodologies. Four Process Accelerators were launched in early 2004 to effectively pilot the Process Fitness methodology.

The Crude & Feedstock Selection accelerator is focused on the complex interactions between the Refining and Trading organisations. It aims to optimise the decision making process behind the selection of crude feeds to refineries and continuously improve commercial performance.

Each accelerator brought a Corven consultant into the team in a Communications & Engagement, and later, Change Management role. Corven were asked to work with the project team in delivering on the Process Fitness agenda by engaging practitioners and management in the design and implementation of the future process. Corven’s goal was two-fold:

• To achieve sustainable organisational change - ultimately ensuring that the new process is “owned” by the business and not the project team
• To build change management and engagement capability within the accelerator core team

Approach

Sustainable organisational change
Working very much as part of the core team, we designed and delivered an integrated stream of work throughout the life of the project. Corven adopted a structured approach which included:

• Identifying and tracking all key stakeholders
• Segmenting stakeholders into meaningful/useful groups
• Establishing the (ongoing) level of engagement of each group
• Developing and delivering a realistic Communication and Engagement plan
• Evaluating and measuring the success of the approach

Building capability
Rather than use a classroom-based approach, Corven adopted a “Do-Learn-Do” approach. The team absorbed the theory through a series of short presentations spread out over the initial phase of the project and then gained the skills and understanding by actually getting involved in the planning, design and delivery of events and materials.

Results

The project life covers 6 distinct phases:

Define – Measure – Investigate – Implement - Evaluate – Standardise

The project is currently in the Implement phase – delivering on recommendations that came from the business itself. Corven have successfully engaged the key practitioners at the pilot sites who have been involved from the outset in scoping the project, articulating how the process actually works today and identifying areas where they should look to improve performance.

The feedback on the approach (both in terms of the methodology and the level of engagement with the business) has been extremely positive and the core team has already been able to hand responsibility for a significant percentage of the delivery to individuals at the pilot sites.

Corven’s determination to involve and communicate regularly with the wider Refining and Trading organisations has given us a great platform from which to drive a full global rollout following the successful pilot implementation.