IN COLLABORATION WITH
FUTURE PERSPECTIVES ON COLLABORATION
IN THE OIL & GAS INDUSTRY
PERSPECTIVES, TRENDS, SURVEY FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS
Dr. Kjetil Kristensen [KC] EAGE Amsterdam 2009
Mr. Darrel Fanguy [Cyviz LLC] Kristensen Consulting © 2009

Outline
Objectives of the survey
Results
Most important reasons or drivers
Most common CE functionalities
Perceived value and experienced usability
Key findings
Conclusions
Applications
Take-away message
© Kristensen Consulting 2009 2

Objectives of the Survey
Explore how companies in the Oil & Gas industry use
collaborative environments (CEs) to achieve business
objectives
Explore how technology is applied to support these
structures and work processes
Identify and explain common shortcomings and bottlenecks
experienced by companies trying to realize the potential
value of collaboration
Conclude with a discussion of mission critical capabilities for
Oil & Gas companies that are interested in using
collaboration as a strategic enabler of productivity, decision
making and knowledge sharing
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Collaboration – The Big Picture
“Firms come into being in order to enable human
beings to achieve collaboratively what they could not
achieve alone. If one accepts this as the true purpose
of any organization, then the main focus of
executives’ attention should be on how to foster
collaboration within their companies”
Hansen & Nohria, MIT MR 2004
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Overall Trends
Use of CEs in the O&G industry – overall trend Time spent in CEs (weekly average)
SURVEY FACT BOX
Participating companies: 43
Web survey respondents: 103 (275 invited; response rate 37 %)
In depth personal interviews: 9
Survey designer: Kristensen Consulting, Survey sponsor: Cyviz AS
Report format: 23 pages, 22 exhibits
EAGE discount: USD 3 500 – free copy available for participating companies
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Most Important Reasons for Using CEs
The collaborative environment shorten the decision cycle and it is "need to
have" to improve and organize our work as all the asset team members are
present during the decision making.
[Anonymous survey participant]
Collaboration environments are a growing need. Teams are becoming more
and more remote with expertise spread all over the world. Having access to
the expertise and getting them to collaborate together regularly is critical. I
see it as a need to have now and in the future.
[Anonymous survey participant]
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Most Common CE Functionalities
A true collaboration session [for me] would be true, two-way, bi-directional
audio, video and computer shared content between one and more location or
locations, where you can hear, see and share the same content together.
[Chris Lawson, The Whitlock Group]
People are getting their work done significantly faster because they’re
looking at a 3D problem and they’re using 3D tools – to see someone go
through a fairly large offshore survey in half the time [...] it just wakes you up
to new possibilities.
[Bill Matthews, Schlumberger Integrated Services for Exploration]
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All Functionalities – Value / Usability
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Major Findings [1/2]
CEs are now mission critical - a majority of survey
participants view CEs as mission critical, and they also expect
to see a higher demand for such facilities as the number of
known uses and benefits continue to increase
Audio conferencing, video conferencing and data sharing
are the most important functionalities provided by CEs, but
many respondents find the applications difficult to use
Current and anticipated use is higher than expected. More
than 75 % of users expect to see more CEs in their
corporations, and in excess of 30 % work in CEs more than 6
hours per week
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Major Findings [2/2]
Integrated operations and related concepts are reaching a
stage of maturity
The major challenges often lie within the organizational
structures, work practices and implementation capabilities
Multi-purpose CEs are increasingly becoming popular.
Layouts and solution offerings must handle a number of
different locations, user groups, processes and settings in a
flexible manner
The failure rate of CEs is too high. This is partly due to poor
reliability and partly to poor usability in real life contexts.
Intuitive user interfaces, standardization, reliable service
concepts, awareness and training are identified as key
remedies
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Results - Priority Issues
1. Collaboration management and strategy development
2. New work practice development
3. Technology and infrastructure management
4. Usability aspects and the front end of CEs
5. Awareness and training
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Conclusions
Collaboration
Can be a powerful accelerator of key E&P processes
Is a complex undertaking; many things can go wrong
Excellence needed on several levels
Strategy with sufficiently broad scope
Execution capabilities
Additional value could be extracted from collaboration
A more systematic, comprehensive approach
Functionality - more does not equal better; usability is key
Technology is important (e.g. standardisation), but not alone
Infrastructures and work practices should be co-developed
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Take-
Take-Away Message
“The future is already here - it is just unevenly distributed”
- William Gibson
1. Actively manage collaboration top-down
To excel at collaboration, you need to consider a range of issues
Poor performance in a single area can be a show stopper
2. Collaboration is about people
Infrastructure is important, but it is not enough
Collaboration is fragile – the rewards are great, but it breaks easily
3. Collaboration is about reaching business objectives
See beyond collaboration for collaboration’s own sake
Stay focused on the objectives
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Kjetil Kristensen, PhD
Kristensen Consulting
Beddingen 8, Aker Brygge
Central Business District
N-0250 OSLO, NORWAY
E-mail kc@kristensenconsulting.com
Web www.kristensenconsulting.com
Office +47 22 82 36 44
Mobile +47 92 61 50 08
Blog www.collaborationperspectives.com
Twitter www.twitter.com/k_kristensen
Web www.kristensenconsulting.com

Extra Slide: Detailed Survey Information
More than 275 oil & gas professionals have been invited to share their experiences with
collaborative work environments. 9 in-depth interviews have been carried out to
complement and enrich the findings from the online survey. Survey period: 29 August – 17
November 2008.
The survey response rate is 37 %, with 71 tracked responses from named individuals, and
32 additional responses from internal e-mail forwarding in oil & gas companies that have
requested respondents to be anonymous. The total number of companies represented in
the survey is 43. The survey has a near global coverage, with the following regions
represented: Europe (66 %) / North America (17 %) / Middle East (14 %) / other (3 %).
A number of roles are represented in the survey, including geologist, geophysical,
petrophysicist, petroleum engineer, project manager, IT / AV infrastructure, interpretation
/ visualization software QA, business development manager, business analyst, general
manager, HSE engineer, industrial designer of collaborative environments, corporate
support, and business analyst.
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