Organizational reshuffling to facilitate coordinated decisions in complex projects

Abstract

Oil and gas development projects are characterized by numerous contractual agreements. This forms a complex organization, with the challenge to coordinate diverse and interrelated stakeholders at different moments in the project. A critical issue is the communication and coordination between actors on cross-boundaries decisions. This is notably due to the classical definition of organizational boundaries, with several physical packages and, of course, several contractors. The approach consists in, first, modeling interdependencies between project elements such as product components, activities, and organizational entities. Second, some complex phenomena such as propagation chains and loops are identified, in order to anticipate potential undesired consequences if those are not properly managed. Third, an organizational reshuffling is computed, based on the double objective of incorporating at best within clusters the critical interactions and the critical complex phenomena. Results show an improvement on both objectives compared to current organization, meaning that communication and coordination about some crucial cross-boundaries decisions are expected to be facilitated within and between clusters. An industrial application in the oil and gas sector is introduced in order to highlight possible benefits and implementation strategies for such an approach.