Application of system thinking to frame the problem in a subsea development projects with high-level business requirements

Abstract

The oil and gas industry are continuously performing development projects to improve their offerings. In this industry the typical input to the development project is high-level business requirement mixed with specific solutions. The stakeholders setting the requirements and dictating the solutions are often more concerned with the business needs and are lacking a holistic view of how this affect the technical systems solution through its life cycle. In this paper, we apply systems thinking to understand the impact of the high-level business requirements and gain a deeper insight in how to tackle them to meet the target of the project. We apply systematic analysis to an actual development project in a supplier company to understand the problem and the forces acting on it. Using a systemigram we model the problem and then apply the system principle of openness to understand what parts of the problem we can affect. Based on the analysis we propose three focus areas for the project development to move forward and meet the project target