Essential Ingredients of Effective Project Management: A Case Study of Project Execution in the South Pars Mega-Projects

Abstract

During the past decades hundreds of wells have been constructed in the giant South Pars gas field with different approaches and methodologies leading to diverse outcomes and results. Interestingly enough there have been many operators in the field with distinct performances yet by deploying the same vendors and service providers held in common. By considering that it is statistically proven that the larger the project budget, there are higher chances for failure, effective tailoring of methodologies in large scale mega-projects would be crucial and decisive. In many cases failures are a consequence of simply applying methodologies already experienced in small scale projects on complex and sophisticated projects with a variety of influential factors and a huge network of stakeholders. The study has provided an insight on how effective approaches in project management or conversely mismanagement could play as the main rout cause in a chain of events corresponding to either saved time or Non-Productive Times in well construction operations by presenting real cases elaborated in detail. Cases show how failure in collecting requirements and recognizing the interdependencies among each necessity in the early stages of the project and subsequently overlooking the related cost, time and risks could cause massive cumulative financial loss. Additionally, failure to recognize wise investments in vendors and service providers as the 1-10-100 rule which explains how failure to take notice of one initial investment escalates the financial loss exponentially would have staggering consequences. The current paper explains how being proactive in an extensive planning phase could ease the execution stage as a great investment in time spent. From a human resource perspective, it has been demonstrated that how the ability and skills of the project team e.g. effective communication in complex networks with multiple reporting relationships and data-driven decisions by statistics could prevent cognitive biases and errors in decision making. Furthermore, powerful alignments come from shared and common motivations and morale for all engaged parties and the supply chain being service providers, rig contractors or the field operator and there should be an answer to the question, what's in it for me when asked by each of these parties. Overall the study presents real cases and lessons learned showing how the main rout causes of Non-Productive Times could go back deeply to ineffective project approaches from a project management perspective in a system dynamic chain of events rather than to just address the emerged symptoms of failure in drilling operation.