ECITB launches Project Collaboration Toolkit

The ECITB has recently launched its Project Collaboration Toolkit for the oil and gas industry. The toolkit is the latest strand of activity that is designed to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration within the industry, developed by the ECITB and the Offshore Project Management Steering Group (OPMSG). The OPMSG is a group of (voluntary) project practitioners with a shared vision of achieving high-quality project delivery, created in January 2014.

In November 2015, the OPMSG delivered a ‘not for profit’ community conference to approximately 300 project practitioners. This focused on ‘Collaboration for Cost Reduction in delivering North Sea Projects,’ with the purpose of challenging the audience in thinking about behavioural changes that will, in turn, drive collaboration. Much feedback was collected at the event, which addressed key areas concerned with the MER Agenda. The consensus demonstrated that the industry wants and needs to collaborate, but has not had the resources or knowledge of how to achieve this.

For some time, there has been ongoing discussion and debate around the most effective contracting relationships, with particular focus now that there is a crisis in confidence due to ongoing low oil price. Therefore, the ECITB and the OPMSG agreed to deliver a ‘Project Collaboration Toolkit’ to serve as a practical aid and set out the behaviours required for all parties to achieve greater collaboration across all sectors in the Industry.

The working group was led by Jim Lenton, Interim President at Amec Foster Wheeler and sought contributions from across the sector. The toolkit has been endorsed by Oil & Gas UK and the OCA as it makes a very positive contribution in addressing the challenges facing the industry, and supports the Oil & Gas UK Efficiency Task Force (OGUK ETF) behavioural charter.

The Project Collaboration Toolkit is designed to be used at all levels of the supply chain from regulators and operators through to contractors and suppliers and is intended to build on existing synergies.

The entire toolkit supports project collaboration, from inception to completion, but individual phase steps and activities can be applied by project managers to projects that have not been established on a collaborative strategy.

Lynsey Benson, ECITB senior account manager for Scotland, and member of the OPMSG said: “Adopting a collaborative approach to project delivery will never be an easy option. It will require a change in sector culture and a move away from the delivery and contracting models that have predominated. Collaboration is not promoted as a complete replacement for business and project competition. It is not something that will bring the entire sector together for all of the time and, where it is applied, will require a clear vision.”

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/equipment-and-safety/22082016/ecitb-launches-project-collaboration-toolkit/