Integrated project management
Authors: Rest Nicolaas E. 
Published: October 2008

This paper describes the latest experiences and ideas of project management based on fast track FPSO projects in the NorthSea arena. These experiences and ideas have been developed from a managing contractors point of view and identify external and internal organizational aspects which are relevant for an integrated project set-up. This paper will focus not only on the technical aspects of project management but will also address the business and organizational aspects which should facilitate and support the complex "technical" organization and the individual technical professional. Due to the complex nature of offshore projects the tendency was that project organizations were built on individual specialism or functions and many jobs were standardized, which led to a differentiated organization structure and procedures. This thinking does support and increase the project control aspects of project management, but the negative aspects of this organization model, i.e. bureaucracy, is that the flexibility and innovative behavior of project teams is limited and communication structures become too complex to cope with the changing business environment. The standard project objectives, safety, cost, schedule and service/quality levels are continuously changing and become more and more stringent. Legislation is changing and rules and regulations have developed from prescriptive to goal setting. This means that the onus of performance standards and quality levels is now the responsibility of the project teams.

New ideas are required and one idea is the integral project management approach i.e. technical, contractual, commercial and social aspects of project management need to be integrated and all project functions need to support the overall project objectives. This will require integrated thinking and understanding of the relevant organizational aspects from the early start of a project involving all available talent within an organization.

Today's management trends such as strategic management and learning organizations can support the integrated project management approach, but theories will not automatically become daily practice. This will require experimentation and result sharing between projects and organizations.

It is my opinion, that initiatives such as CRINE will be supported by an integrated projeet approach.

The highlighted ideas and findings should lead to a more integrated approach to complicated offshore projects, including better utilization of the personal skills of (technical) project members.

FPSO projects are very suitable as a study object from an integrated project management point of view, due to the fact that FPSO developments are complex and their project objectives are challenging. As an example, FPSO projects require to merge the practices of two industries i.e. shipbuilding and the offshore industry. Both industries have different suppliers, regulations, practices, organizations, authorities, etc, which indicates that the project environment has become more complex.

This paper will be supported by examples that have been experienced during several projects.

The significance of the subject matter is that the offshore environment in the North Sea has moved from large field development into deep water and marginal field development. It should be noted that the few large developments which are left and the refurbishment of existing production units have both been excluded from this paper. This, together with the tendency of oil companies to subcontract the development of production units, has led to smaller profit margins and more severe competition.