Enabling A Nation - How PDO Powers Government Continuous Improvement & Creating Leaders for the Future of Oman
Authors: Al Kindi Nasser , Al Zaabi Yousuf , Bryant Wayne , Al Salmi Ahmed , Kays Carl , Al Habib Amir 
Published: October 2022

Objective / Scope

The main objective of the paper to showcase PDO successful journey in transferring Continuous Improvement (CI) knowledge to targeted entities within the government of the Sultanate of Oman by building CI capabilities to deliver significant improvement activity. Effectively after signing the MOU with Oman Vision 2040 Unit in 2019 for 5 years, a full CI transformation program kicked off to change the culture of the public sector from the inherited bureaucracy of which has the top leader is the showman, to a new way of working where the top leaders considered as the enabler of the progress (the main sponsor), wearing the learner hat, to understand the challenges from the front line of the business, be able to coach them to achieve their goals with minimal influence to their day to day work and huge encouragement to break down walls having them reach towards their desired destination.

This supports the government's target to position Oman as an attractive environment for ease of doing business & the deployment plan focuses on building local CI capability within each entity, replicating improvements across the other entities, sustainability, and Leadership coaching.

Methods, Procedure, Process

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has more than 10 years' experience in the journey of Continuous Improvement. The experience is healthy with inflections and corrections over the course of progress until it covered all the organization vertically and horizontally. In 2020 it covered all functions and reached two level of categories spanning all staff: CI Professionals and CI Generalist. This concept and culture change can't be simulated into the government as is. It had to go through some modification for easy adoption and faster implementation. Building individual skills takes its own course of time, so the CI Professionals of PDO were posted into the core government system, the Oman Vision 2040 Implementation and Follow-up Unit. This allows immediate impact into the system and swift digital transformation to the centralized dashboard reviewed by leadership to sustain improvements.

While the transformation takes place, PDO takes internally, 15 highly competent individuals from different government entities, as a secondment for 3 years development program to become accredited CI coaches and ultimately take their learning back to their organizations. Additionally, PDO provided the nation with a free online access to one of the problem-solving methodologies "Lean Awareness". This online session is developed to support a nationwide buy-in as part of the change management efforts to increase the awareness of continuous improvement.

Results, Observation, Conclusions

The high-level value delivered by the CI Deployment in the Government can be sampled from any of the CI projects delivered, E.g., the 90% improvement to the 'starting a new business process'. The overall scale, scope, and speed of improvement projects across the government entities is unprecedented. However, value is much more than the process improvements, such as: PDO Omani expertise being utilized to accelerate CI Capability across the Government. Improving starting business process by 90% from 10 months to 1.25 months. To "Lean" over 100 government services in 12 different entities by end of 2021. PDO improved cross-organization process with Government Entities E.g. Environment Authority permits, Manpower etc. Accelerating the progress of National Digital Transformation Program led by Ministry of Transport, Telecommunication & Information Technology. Build in house and sustainable capability for the government sector. Overall, the value to PDO, the Government and Oman is priceless for the longterm sustainability of the country.

Novel, Additive information

This initiative has had a hugely positive impact on PDO & Oman in the last 3 years and will continue to do so, moving towards end of 2022 and beyond the project team is working closely with Oman e-government team to assist the government to shift from egovernment to Digital government to Smart government - a real game changing innovative shift for Oman.

This project is a true example of how Omani expertise developed and nurtured within PDO is being used to power Oman towards vision 2040 and is a fantastic example of our organization creating in-country value.