Project Change Management for Oil and Gas Projects in Alberta: Towards a Predictive Approach
Creators: name: Ezenta, Ben
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Engineering--Civil
subject: Project Management, change Management, Scope Change, Change Reserve, Contingency,

description: Abstract Change is a common occurrence in construction projects. Irrespective of the magnitude or complexity of a project, changes normally occur due to different reasons. From contract award, through construction and commissioning phases of the project, there is constant occurrence of changes. This research investigated the causes and sources of changes in oil and gas projects in Alberta. The objective is to determine the impact of change in an oil and gas projects and to propose a system for forecasting or estimating changes in a project. The focus of this project is the changes that occur in the execution phase of projects. In the oil and gas industry, different organizations have different names for the project delivery system known as gate process which is divided into phases. This research divided a project into phases also but the definition of phase differ slightly from the gate adaptation. This research draws attention to the need to change allowance or scope allowance as some refers to it. Having established that change occur in every project, no provision is made in the project budget to accommodate these changes. Contingency reserve should not be confused with “change reserve”. Contingency is the risk associated with the project within the control of the project team whereas change allowance is outside the control of the project team but with the owner such as scope change. Data were collected from Inventory of Major Alberta Project (IMAP) and from questionnaires. Interview of questionnaire respondents was used to match the IMAP data to questionnaire responses. The data were analyzed using different statistical tools, SPSS and Microsoft Excel. For detailed analysis, the projects were divided into cost and duration categories. Cost category consist of Large, Medium and Small cost projects while duration category includes Long, Medium and Short duration projects. Furthermore the projects were divided into four different phases namely: Bid, Preconstruction, Construction and Commissioning. The data analysis also included engineering percent complete for each of the categories and phases. This approach provided opportunity for detailed analysis of the data. The results of the analysis were used to plot model graphs that can be used to forecast changes in cost and duration for different phases of a project. Furthermore, an Excel tool was developed that could be used to forecast cost and duration changes in a project when the initial cost, initial duration and engineering percent complete are known. The outcome of this research will be beneficial to all participants in oil and gas project (project owners, contractors and economy). By adopting the tool a lot of guess work will be removed on how to determine the amount of change that could be expected from any project. By so doing, incidences of dispute, claims and litigations will be substantially reduced. The research made some recommendations on how to improve change management in oil and gas projects in Alberta. The conclusion from the research is that change will occur in every project. Establishing a change management mechanism and planning for change starting from the planning stage of the project will assist in mitigating the adverse effect of change in a project. Organizations involved in projects should establish a fully staffed change management unit and procedure. This is currently lacking in most organizations according to survey responses. Change management should be represented at senior management level of organizations as a discipline of its own and should not hidden as a sub function under another disciplines.