Knowing The Drill : Virtual

Teamwork at BP

Syndicate 6 YE 51
Tresnandi Indra Mukti
-2911479
Michael Santoso 29114742
Satria Bakti 29114795
Ellen Josephine - 29114787

BPs Activities
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BPs Birth of The Virtual Team

Network
Needed a network to allow people to work
cooperatively and share knowledge
quickly and easily regardless of time,
distance, and organizational boundaries.
The aim of this computer network is to
allow people to work cooperatively and
share knowledge quickly and easily
regardless of time, distance, and
organizational boundaries. The network
is a rapidly growing system of
sophisticated personal computers
equipped so that users can work
together as if they were in the same
room and can easily tap the company's
rich database of information. The PCs
boast videoconferencing capability,
electronic blackboards, scanners, faxes,
and groupware. But that's not all

 These PCs, as well as all the

other 35,000-odd basic PCs in
the company, are connected
to an intranet that contains a
rapidly growing number of
home pages. Everyone at BP
now has the capability and
authority to create his or her
own home page. The
corporate philosophy: Let a
thousand -- or a million -home pages bloom. As of
July, the intranet sites
contained approximately
40,000 pages of information

Top Management
Each member of BP's top management team and each
general manager of the business units has at least one
virtual team workstation. Browne has two: one in his
office and one in his London home. They allow him to
be in two places or more at the same time, he says,
describing how he recently participated in separate
management conferences in Johannesburg and
Singapore from his office. "We had great discussions,"
he says. "We talked about BP, where it was going, the
constraints, the issues that they had. Had I not had the
network, what would I have done? Tried to bend my
schedule to the point of absurdity? Sent a videotape?
Browne believes that effective leadership requires
personal relationships. It requires continual
conversations about competitive dynamics,
performance, and corporate values. "These
technologies allow the center to stay engaged with the
business," Cross says. "Without them, John's
organizational model is not sustainable."

BP Groups business activities are organized into

four main areasupstream, downstream,
chemicals, and gas and power - together
comprising more than 150 autonomous business
units. During the late 1990s, BP pursued highly
successful merger-and-acquisition activities and is
now combined with Amoco, Burma, Castrol and
ARCO

In recent times BP has attempted to develop a

business out of alternative and renewable energy
with a particular focus on solar energy. Its
corporate branding emphasizes four core
characteristics: progressive, green, innovative and
performance

Strategy
In the mid 1990s BP embarked on a knowledge
sharing strategy built around the concept of the
Virtual Team, which involved enabling geographically
dispersed teams with a tool-kit of high technology
enablers, including video-conferencing. The approach
was formed in response to a restructuring of its
upstream business from a centralized structure into
smaller, more geographically dispersed units. Its pilot
demonstrated:
Radical change in workforce performance could be
achieved through enabling Virtual Teams
The critical importance of fostering a culture of
knowledge sharing throughout the organization
The importance of embedding knowledge sharing into
business process
Since the strategy was implemented, knowledge
sharing and collaboration has become embedded
across the organization as a strategic imperative

INITIATIVES
Central to the knowledge strategy are business
change group-wide initiatives. Include in this is
Drilling & Well Learning, Projects Excellence,
Operations Excellence (OE), Green Operations to
name a few , supported by an Intranet system known
as the Common Operating Environment (COE)
OE utilizes a knowledge portal serving an active
global operations community of 1,000 with regular
contributions from all levels from technician to Vice
President. The potential operations audience could
be as high as 33000
Knowledge sharing in OE is further enabled by a best
practice database as well as an active discussion
board (eClips) with 94% of questions receiving a
response

Mid-level leadership act as mentors

Mid-level leadership and excellence co-ordinators
track discussion threads on the e-Clips knowledge
management tool and crystallise these into knowledge
assets by:

Summarising the know-how contained in the

thread to date

Wrapping up with a best practice final response

Communities of Practice
A key learning from BPs Virtual Teams initiative was:

These units could be more creative and efficient

through the sharing of knowledge and best practices

Communities of Practice must be formed around

areas of expertise to support real operational or
strategic business needs

Leadership

Senior leadership committed to knowledge

journey
BPs senior executives have given high profile and
consistent backing to the process of implementing
knowledge management
Most activities or tasks are not one time events
whether its serving fuel at a service station or
drilling a well -we do the same things repeatedly.
Our philosophy should be fairly simple: every time
we do something again, we should do it better
than the last Sir John Browne, BP CEO

Culture

Common language and understanding around

knowledge management

BP has adopted a deliberate strategy to move

away from Knowledge Management The specific
challenges faced by the sector in terms of
capability over the long wavelength meant that
the natural evolution for knowledge management
was two fold:
Firstly a focus on the individual known as
Organisational Capability. Secondly, a continued
focus on the management of knowledge across
the individuals and teams known as
Organisational Learning.

 One of the key focus areas BP targeted

was the Manufacturing & Operations
Base:

To embrace and associate with the actual

knowledge driven objective: in BPs case,
they focused on one of the key areas of
Operational Excellence. To gain all the
advantages of their scope and scale by
integrating technical, scientific, and
commercial knowledge deeply and
rapidly across the global enterprise

 Reorganization -> 42 business

assets -> communication is essential

Pilot
Project

Pilot project Virtual Teamwork

Project design:
o independent group

(from diverse parts of the

company)

o objective: behavior and work

pattern change

(not just technology)

o start: December 1994

Pilot Project

Virtual Teamwork clients

Trying with using 5
communities (Andrew Project
and mature oil field group)
Business center network
team of geoscientist and
engineer with full time host

Change Management Team

To coach (20% introduce the
technology, 80% challenging
to exploit capabilities)
1 group fail (no coaching
budget issues)
Virtual Petrotechnical team
fail to operate simple tech.
Lack understanding of
usefulness of the tech
(skeptic)

BP
Benefit

Guidance and Support

Collaboration across time,
distance, organizational
structure barriers
Efficiency in achievement of
business goals and decision
making
Creativity
Synergies in a federation of
assets

Proof of Concept
Other group succeed
Increase enthusiasm,
reducing time table.
VT are as credible and
trusted as face to
face but less the
cost.

Unplanned Uses
1. Virtual Coffee Breaks spark
creative ideas from knowledge
sharing and enthusiasm, with
no regard of number of
participant, time, and distance
2. Performance Review and
Improvement Study Video
report of every manager level,
made into CD ROM and spread
worldwide.

THE FUTURE
Expanding the Virtual
Teamworking high
proportion equipment.
Online Enhanced Yellow
Pages photo, biographies,
interest, etc.
Knowledge Management
Task Force (Head Director
Russell Seal) identify and
recommend new horizon for
company KM.

Thank you