Background of the Deepwater Horizon Project
Discuss about the Deepwater Horizon Project Study for General Systems.
Managing complex engineering projects that are large scale such as Deep water horizon can be very difficult and can pose several risks that can also be disastrous. In the case of Deepwater horizon, a major set back was received because missing some major tests on the cement construction completion. The project involved drilling sea surface for oil and gas extraction. This report explores the case of the project in detail exploring the company as well as the project to identify how risks had occurred and how they should have been managed.
In the Gulf of Mexico, 33,000 ton rig called Deepwater Horizon was construction that had 20 stories constructed over the top deck. The project was constructed to drill the 252 Canyon block of Mississippi that had a large oil and gas reservoir inside. The drilling was done on the Macondo well and the project was expected to be completed in 51 days within the budget of $96.2 million. However, over the time, initial plans that were built got modified because of the knowledge that engineers would gather about the geological formations in the region demanding change of plan. This not just delayed the work but also increased the cost for the organization.
Deepwater horizon was one of the biggest engineering project failures that had occurred because of the engineering fault. The mud and water came from inside and spilled over the deck increasing the pressure on the structure resulting into major multiple explorations that destroyed the whole rig resulting into not just the failure of the construction but also damaging many lives and causing oil spill in the water. This report would, make an attempt to explore the case so that some approaches to such complex project management can be identified in the cases and recommendations can be made on what could have prevented the major disaster that had happened in the company (Burggren, et al. 2015).
The stakeholder analysis model can be used for identifying the level of influence each stakeholder on the project carries. The stakeholders of the project included testing engineers that have high influence but low interests, workers with high interest but low influence, and the project manager with high influence as well as the impact. A differential approach was required to be taken to manage these influences and interest of the stakeholders. However, the highest influencers were take care of while the engineers were left out to only follow the orders (Bryant 2014).
Engineering Fault and the Disaster
The major stakeholders of the Deep Water Horizon project were:
- Brian Morel who was the drilling engineer and was responsible for carrying out the drill work
- Robert Kaluza was the daytime BP who monitored the drilling work
- Ronald Sepulvado was the site leader and supervised the whole work at the rig
- John Guide was the team leader who guided the team on execution and helped them resolve any issues that prevented the work
- David Sims was the Operations manager who was to check the results of the tests conducted and give a go head on the work.
- Douglas Brown was the Chief mechanic who was approve the technical results of the project to suggest if the project was safe to go head.
- Captain Kuchta was the project owner and had a major say in taking major decisions about the project including if the team should approve the results and go ahead with drilling.
- Micah Sandell was The Crane operator who was involved in the drilling work and was responsible for handling the crane
- Vidrine was another BP involved in the drilling work at the site
- Mike Williams who was the chief electronic technician was one person responsible for the complete assessment of the test results and was the master of his job and was responsible for any risks or damages that could happen on the project (Ingersoll, Locke and Reavis 2012)
For understanding the risks on the project, Diamond model can be used here. The model is based on the PMBOK framework and identifies four risk dimensions that include novelty, technology, complexity, and pace. Novelty relates to the product produced and its relating with the customer and the initial requirements of the project. It can be relative, breakthrough or platform and can help team assess the time requirements for producing accurate results and fulfil all the project requirements.
Technologies used can be from medium to high level in sophistication. In the case of Deep Water Horizon project, high end technologies were utilized. As per this model, high level of technical activities need high end skills in the people working on the project. This skill was there in the core team but the major decision maker who gave go ahead to the project was not sufficiently equipped to understand the consequences of having a miss in the technology. He was aware of the technical procedures involved but did not understand the importance well and was more focused on saving the operational expenses on the project and therefore, insisted on skipping some major tests (Williams 2017).
Complexity can arise on an engineering project from an assembly, system or an array. This can help a team shape the organizational structure, level of formality and needed bureaucracy. The project was inappropriately handling the situation even on this front as the project owner did not have the required mind-set of giving safety the priority.
Pace reflected in the model refers to the speed needed on a project which could have been regular, fast or time critical. The speed was initially very slow but then the management decided to speed up the work to the level of criticality which was not required. As a result, the consequences occurred fast and could not be handled leading to a great chaotic situation that became too critical to handle (HPE 2017).
The value generated by a project can be best explored with the use of the Cynefin model. The model assumes that projects cannot have a single solution for management of changing situations and project team on all projects and thus, the teams have to be adaptive enough to the changing situations. The model descries a situation as something that can influence the decisions of the people involved in a project. The knowledge takes a formal shape and becomes a tool for solving major project problems. The situations are categorized into five domains that have cause and effect relationships between them based on which decisions can be taken. This approach could have been used on the project for managing situations. The project initially had both ordered and unordered situations that grew chaotic at the later stages of the project and thus was clicking between situation of disorder (Azim 2010).
Stakeholder Analysis Model
Situations can affect the cause and effect relationships and thus, should be responding taking a formal and logical approach like sense-categorize-respond approach. However, situations that are obvious are very simple to handle and more often the leaders do not feel the need to explore new ideas and learn from the experience. In the Deep Horizon project, the need for testing cement output was an obvious situation. There was a cause and effect relationship that existing between testing and project performance. Thus, if the team would have taken the obvious response of testing for identification of the problems, the damage to the rig could have been avoided with the discovery of the issue that had caused the disaster. The stakeholder were worried about the loss of money as the project was already over budget and the tests would incur more costs. They trusted the work of the cement laying team and avoided the test. With the avoiding of the obvious situation, the team got into the situation of the Chaos (Sperling 2015).
If the “sense-analyse-respond” approach was taken, Mike could have conducted the true test on the cement construction just as he did with the negative pressure test which could have revealed the problem symptoms and the team could have adjusted accordingly to change the course of action. Even after the stress tests, the situation was not completely clear and the negative pressure test was run again for reassurance. Things were still not aligned yet the tests appeared somewhat positive and thus, the project head decided to gave a go ahead to the drilling. If only the team was more careful and had taken the signal of indecisive situation seriously, the drilling could have been postponed and the disaster could have bene avoided.
However, in reality, the leak happened in the rig with mud entering the deck and the situation went chaotic. At this point a fast response was expected with immediate closing of drill and calling of emergency services to mitigate the possible damages. However, an immediate help was not sought as the team waited for the approval from the right authority and the situation went into a complete disaster state. If only the team had the authority to take a decision on emergency situations, the mitigation measures could still have been better than the worst that happened (Shane, Strong and Gransberg 2012).
The cementing of the drill zone was completed on 20th April 2010 which was to follow certain tests to ensure that the rig was stable too continue with the drilling work. The project at the time was already over the initial budget by $58 million and had also exceed the schedule by six weeks. The drilling was completed till the level of 9000 feet’s down the ocean surface. The next step was to conduct a series of tests that included pressure tests and cement tests. However, as the management was concerned about the rising costs, they cam up with the idea of skipping some tests. On the insistence of the supervisor, a positive and negative pressure test was conducted which gave some confusing results. While on one side the rig looked performing well within limits, there were some unexpected findings too and the supervisor suggested to take it ahead with precaution. However, the project owner being the major stakeholder of the company and the project had a major say and he gave a go ahead to the team to proceed with the drilling and skip the cement test to save on money (Cholan, Makin and Smith 2013).
Diamond Model and Risk Dimensions
The team then opened the preventer and placed the drill down the mud and spacer. As the pumping began, the water started to come on the deck and it was expected that the flood was safe but upon checking, it was realised that the mud was coming back and was going to the gas buster. The spill over happened too fast and the seawater as well as mud started to flow on the desk making the gas buster release smoke and soon a fire explosion happened. The rig was on fire and gradually, multiple explosions followed destroying the complete rig.
After completion of the pressure tests, blow out preventer was opened and the tram began to pump the seawater down the drill to displace mud and spacer from the riser. The drilling was stopped when spacer arrived on the rig for testing if the fluid was safe to dump but in the process, a team member found out that the drill was getting the mud back and it was getting diverted to the gas buster. Both mud and seawater started to blow on the deck as a result and soon gassy smoke filled it up. It was followed by a series of fire explosions and the whole rig was on fire.
The level of maturity of the organization and the project can be decided by the head managing the project outcome and taking major decisions. The company needs to have proper management and influence of the stakeholders. The stakeholders of the project included the company head, technicians, and drilling workers. The owner had a very high influence on the project and thus, had to agree to by the workers. The organization was not mature enough for the workers to take decisions in critical events. Despite many workers not satisfied with the idea of skipping some tests, the same was done because of the influence from the top management and the project was proceeded with.
Conclusions
The paper explored the case of Deep Water Horizon project which proved out to be a complete failure because of certain tests that were skipped. It was found that the result was actually cause by the project management factors such as lack of appropriate stakeholder management practices, lack of the right skills and mind-sets in the major stakeholders.
References
Azim, S. W. (2010). Understanding and Managing Project Complexity . School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering .
Bryant, J. (2014). Strategies for Managing Complex Projects. SHRP.
Burggren, W., Dubansky, B., Roberts, A., & Alloy, M. (2015). Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill as a Case Study for Interdisciplinary Cooperation within Developmental Biology, Environmental Sciences and Physiology. World Journal of Engineering and Technology, 7-23.
Cholan, J., Makin, T., & Smith, S. (2013). The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill A Case Study about the Development of an Evolving Communication Strategy. Marshall School of Business.
Gunsteren, L. A., & Loon, P. P. (2010). MANAGING COMPLEX PROJECTS: PROPOSED BEST PRACTICE ATTRIBUTES FOR MANAGING COMPLEX PROJECTS AND EXPLORING THEIR ADOPTION IN PRACTICE. Delft University of Technology.
HPE. (2017). Managing Complex Projects. HP ENterprise.
Ingersoll, C., Locke, R. M., & Reavis, C. (2012). BP and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster of 2010. MIT Sloan.
Shane, J., Strong, K., & Gransberg, D. (2012). Guidebook: Project Management Strategies for Complex Projects. National Academy of Sciences.
Sperling, D. (2015). Guide to Project Management Strategies for Complex Projects. TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD.
Williams, T. (2017). The Nature of Risk in Complex Projects. Hull, United Kingdom: University of Hull.
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