Components of Oracle Fusion Applications

Included in the Oracle announcement is...

Oracle Fusion Financials is part of Oracle Fusion Applications, which are completely open, standards-based enterprise applications that can be easily integrated into a service-oriented architecture. Designed as a complete suite of modular applications, Oracle Fusion Applications help you improve performance, lower IT costs, and get better results. Whether you choose one module, a product family, or the entire suite, Oracle enables you to gain the benefits of Oracle Fusion Applications at a pace that matches your business needs.

Ah we’ll take the whole suite. I’m not going to detail the actual modules that will be used in the application, that's for others to decide. My involvement in the Preliminary Specification and subsequent development is nothing. As I have mentioned here before, I have to choose between doing all of the work or none, and I have taken the sane choice. There is no in between. Although I would love to participate in these developments, my role is to secure the financial resources for the development team and Community of Independent Service Providers.

From what I have been able to read about the application modules, they will be extremely flexible and provide the Community of Independent Service Providers with the ability to bring substantial and innovative systems to their producer clients.

Two things that stand out in my quick review, the first being what’s not there. That is any oil and gas specific functionality or process management. These are generic applications that are designed to be developed further for the individual industries use. That is where People, Ideas & Objects, and the Community of Independent Service Providers, will develop and provide the industry with systems based on using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative producer.

The second point is about the overall architecture of the applications. SAP requires you to pick a process that is close to what you want and cater the firm to that process. As was noted in a recent post, the Oracle Fusion Applications provide the opportunity to design the most efficient organizational process and then build the systems to support the optimal solution.

For the industry to successfully provide for the consumers energy demands, it’s necessary to build the systems that identify and support the Joint Operating Committee. Building the Preliminary Specification is the focus of People, Ideas & Objects. Producers are encouraged to contact me in order to support our Revenue Model and begin their participation in these communities. Those individuals that are interested in joining People, Ideas & Objects can join me here and begin building the software necessary for the successful and innovative oil and gas industry.

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The Scope of the Application

In a recent post we talked about the scope of the development in terms of the Preliminary Specification. Today I want to discuss the scope of the application itself. It may seem that these are the same points, however, I think that there is enough of a difference to warrant this post.

To provide the innovative oil and gas producer with the software tools they need, the end user needs to be involved in the design and development of those systems. People, Ideas & Objects is focused on the end user in its developments. Organized around a comprehensive vision of how and what the systems consist of, the Draft Specification details the vision of the application. Organizing the user in these developments has been our priority throughout these developments. Anyone proposing the development of systems for innovative oil and gas producers would have to include the user in this manner. Yet People, Ideas & Objects is the only software developer that is focused on the user. Does SAP provide a comprehensive development of systems based on user input? Do the current bureaucracies believe the issues of the oil and gas industry can be solved without comprehensive user based software developments?


People, Ideas & Objects fills the traditional “ERP” or Enterprise Resource Planning classification of applications. It is a comprehensive solution designed to manage the operations of Joint Operating Committees and producers needs for accounting, administration and management. The Draft Specification defines the general framework of the application. It is anticipated that most, if not all, employees of a producer firm, the service sector and partners of Joint Operating Committees will have access to the application. The various disciplines that are employed in an oil and gas firm, geologists, engineers, landman, accountants and others are included in this definition.


In the People, Ideas & Objects software applications we seek to capture the ways and means of the optimal innovative oil and gas producer. The understanding of the industry is beyond the scope of a handful of contributors and involves the multiple disciplines noted earlier. The collaborative output of the application is well beyond the scope of one individuals understanding of the industry. Therefore clarification and compromise will be a necessary and difficult part of the process. Using advanced business techniques, focused on the conflicts and contradictions that arise, the output will resolve many of the issues within the industry and its application to the Draft Specification. This is a business design process that will involve literally everyone and anyone with experience and understanding of the oil and gas industry. More specifically it is a place where people can contribute their ideas and build their own service based offering in support of the innovative oil and gas producer and end users of the developing People, Ideas & Objects software.


Producer firms also have a critical role to fill in these developments. Their participation helps to define the applications scope of operations. Will the applications include the geographical regions of each area of operations of a producer firm? Will the applications include the types of oil and gas operations that the producer participates in. Without direct participation of the producers in funding and defining the scope of the application, the producer may or may not have all their regions and operations covered. This why the producer needs to participate in these developments now. With the Preliminary Specification set to start on January 1, 2011, and include the scope of the application, now is the time for producers to begin the process of supporting and participating in these developments.


Adding to the scope of the application is the market definitions of the producer firms targeted. The application is proposed to work for International Oil Companies (IOC’s), National Oil Companies (NOC’s), Independents and Start-ups. Using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct provides value for all producers in the industry. To preclude any market definition would unnecessarily limit the scope and value of the application. Joint Operating Committee’s include all types of producers. Producers need to participate in these communities and ensure their operations geographical and operational needs are met. If you have comprehensive operations, working within these communities at the onset provides real value.


Society is put in peril when world oil production declines. There is evidence that the world's oil production has declined. Therefore the world needs to have the energy industry expand its production. To do so requires that we reorganize to enhance the division of labor and specialization within the industry. As has been proven, this reorganization could achieve far greater oil and gas production. Management of the industry is conflicted in expanding the output of the industry. The less they do, the higher the oil and gas prices and the better they appear to perform. This managerial conflict must be addressed and the performance of the industry unleashed. To do so requires the current management of the industry to fund People, Ideas & Objects and build the systems as defined in the Draft Specification. Please join me here.

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Scope of the Preliminary Specification

We have therefore established January 1, 2011 as the commencement of the development of the Preliminary Specification. What does this involve and what are the objectives of the specification? This post will provide a general outline of the work that will be done during 2011.

Firstly we should establish what a “collaboration” is. In many instances the terms collaboration and consensus get confused. I see these as two distinctly separate terms. What I feel happens is a group will define what a consensus is by determining what the majority will agree to. On the other hand, a collaboration is the hard work of determining what is the optimal solution. Collaboration is a process that achieves breakthroughs and discoveries.

The Preliminary Specification is a consensus of the producer community. It is important to have the input of subscribing producers to define the overall scope of the application. If a producer has operations in the Gulf of Mexico, extensive NGL or heavy oil operations they should ensure that the Preliminary Specification’s scope captures those requirements. If they don’t actively participate to define their needs within the application, at the commencement of this development, it will be significantly more difficult to assert their needs in subsequent iterations of the development.

The Preliminary Specification is a collaboration of the end user community. These are the people who will need to use the application. They are the best resource to define the application process and functionality that they need to do their jobs. It is their tacit knowledge that is and will be employed in the oil and gas industry. Tacit knowledge can not be captured and employed by computer systems. What users can do is build the software tools they need to deploy their tacit knowledge. Collaborating to define and discover what tools would work best is therefore their responsibility. No one else can do this critical definition for the user community.

The Preliminary Specification is a collaboration of the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP). This group of individuals, teams and firms are the glue that holds the developers and the users together. They are resources that provide the users with the delivery of their software tools.

The Preliminary Specification has been previously defined as 100 People years of effort. The population of users, producers and CISP participants in making up this 100 People years is very large. In the several thousands. The larger the participation, the better the output of the specification will be. In essence we are trying to capture as many of the ideas that are available in the various communities, the needs of the producers, determining which are the breakthrough discoveries and settling on a scope of functionality of the application. A quotation of Version One defines this as breadth of the application.

To effectively deal with scope on an Agile project, specifications must be considered in two dimensions: breadth first and then depth. It is essential that we understand the breadth of what we want to build early in the project. Dealing with the breadth of the solution helps the team understand scope and cost and will facilitate estimating and release planning. The breadth of a project begins to frame the boundaries of the project and helps to manage the organization’s expectations. Looking at the breadth of the requirements is a much smaller investment of time and resources than dealing with the entire depth. The details are most likely to evolve as we progress through the project so defining them early has less value.

The two constraints placed on the Preliminary Specification are they must use the Draft Specification as it's starting point and be focused exclusively on the business of oil and gas. Technology is not part of this specifications deliverable. The depth of the application will be determined during the Detailed Specification.

Society is put in peril when world oil production declines. There is evidence that the world's oil production has declined. Therefore the world needs to have the energy industry expand its production. To do so requires that we reorganize to enhance the division of labor and specialization within the industry. As has been proven, this reorganization could achieve far greater oil and gas production. Management of the industry is conflicted in expanding the output of the industry. The less they do, the higher the oil and gas prices and the better they appear to perform. This managerial conflict must be addressed and the performance of the industry unleashed. To do so requires the current management of the industry to fund People, Ideas & Objects and build the systems as defined in the Draft Specification. Please join me here.

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Start Date

It might be reasonable to establish a start date in which we could look forward to beginning the next step in our developments. That being the development of the Preliminary Specification. Therefore, you should mark your calendars for January 1, 2011. That is when the development of the Preliminary Specification will begin. People who are interested in becoming members of the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP), and participate directly in the Preliminary Specification, should begin the development of your proposal as soon as possible. We will begin accepting applications August 31, 2010.  


It would be ideal to have as many people as possible involved in the development of the Preliminary Specification. Therefore, special emphasis should be placed on the marketing aspects of your proposal, as all the other CISP members, users and producers will be able to view the wiki, where they are stored with the specifications deliverables, starting January 31, 2011. Users and producers would then be able to contact CISP members to have their ideas, participation and needs defined through the CISP membership.


Society is put in peril when world oil production declines. There is evidence that the world's oil production has declined. Therefore the world needs to have the energy industry expand its production. To do so requires that we reorganize to enhance the division of labor and specialization within the industry. As has been proven, this reorganization could achieve far greater oil and gas production. Management of the industry is conflicted in expanding the output of the industry. The less they do, the higher the oil and gas prices and the better they appear to perform. This managerial conflict must be addressed and the performance of the industry unleashed. To do so requires the current management of the industry to fund People, Ideas & Objects and build the systems as defined in the Draft Specification. Please join me here.

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January 2010 Update

This update is to advise of the budget activities around our 2010 Budget & Planning. Our deadline of March 31, 2010 is one third closer then where we were at the start of this year. The amount of interest or contact with either producers or investors and shareholders in oil and gas has been none. We currently have no funding commitments.

To my way of thinking we have but one choice. To start these developments in 2010. The scope of this project can not be undertaken on a volunteer basis, it must have the full support of the industry.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas investor or shareholder, who would be interested in funding these software developments and communities, please follow our Funding Policies & Procedures, and our Hardware Policies & Procedures. If your a government that collects royalties from oil and gas producers, and are concerned about the accuracy of your royalty income, please review our Royalty Policies & Procedures and email me. And if your a potential user of this software, and possibly as a member of the Community of Independent Service Providers, please join us here. Our next update will be on or around February 15, 2010.

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2010 Budget and Planning

As promised the 2010 Budget and Plans are set. This post will highlight the aspects of "what" and "how" this is being undertaken. Further discussion is encouraged by contacting me by email or the "Call Me" feature on the bottom left column of this blog.

First off is the objectives for 2010. Completion of the Preliminary Specification was mentioned yesterday. The Preliminary Specification is a collaboration of the end user community. It's cost is based on 100 "People" years of effort and will determine two key components; the scope of the application modules and the detailed analysis of the oil and gas business in a comprehensive, codified manner. The two constraints placed on this development are they must use the Draft Specification as it's starting point and be focused exclusively on the business of oil and gas. Technology is not part of this specifications deliverable. The only technological requirement will be the generation of stories in line with the agile manifesto.

We seek to capture the ways and means of the optimal innovative oil and gas producer in the Preliminary Specification. The understanding of the industry is beyond the scope of a handful of contributors and involves multiple disciplines. The collaborative output of the Preliminary Specification will be well beyond the scope of one individuals understanding of the industry. Therefore clarification and compromise will be a necessary and difficult part of the process. Using advanced business techniques focused on the conflicts and contradictions that arise, the output will resolve many of the issues within the industry and its application to the Draft Specification. This is a business design process that will involve literally everyone and anyone with experience and understanding of the oil and gas industry. More specifically it is a place where people can contribute their ideas and build their own service based offering in support of the innovative oil and gas producer and users of the developing People, Ideas & Objects software.

Contributors to the Preliminary Specification are invited to join this development through this process. Users will be compensated for their contributions. I have allocated an average $125.00 U.S. / hour for user contributions. Each of the 100 People years is determined on an eight hour day and 220 days per year. 30% of the $10 million budget is allocated to users. The total population of users may possibly number in the thousands of individuals. This will not be a full time task for any of users, and it is anticipated that no one would be required to leave their current positions in order to contribute to these developments. Subscribing producers are encouraged to second their human resources to this process in order to ensure their unique business needs are met by the Community of Independent Service Providers and the software itself.

Additional financial resources are budgeted in the support of this developing community. Maintenance of the private wiki where these postings will reside, in addition to the multitude of other support requirements; requires we allocate an equal amount of resources to support the community. The remaining 40% of our budget is allocated to overhead, organizational development, preparation & testing of the technological architecture, and the software configurations themselves.

As indicated the time frame for completion of this critical community development and specification delivery is the end of the 2010 calendar year. The determination that 100 People years is adequate is a judgment call made based on my experience and understanding of the oil and gas industry. I anticipate that towards the end of 2010 we may be consuming as much as one People year with each day of development.

As always, please join us here.

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More on the Preliminary Specification

The Draft Specification provides the overall vision of how these systems will be built and operate in the oil and gas industry. The Preliminary Specification uses the overall vision of the Draft Specification and puts much of the greater needs or details of each individual job in the oil and gas industry. Answering many of the what and how questions of the things that need to be done. This is a very large group of people that together hold the full scope of understanding of the industry. I am of the belief the Preliminary Specification will require several hundred people to develop a strong skeleton of the systems needs.

It is also this large group of people that will become the core of the Community of Independent Service Providers offerings. Providing leadership for both the Preliminary Specification and forming the core service offerings to support the producers in the future.

The role of the producers is critical at this point. Critical from the point of their specific needs. Participation helps to make the solution appropriate for their needs not only from a process and functionality point of view. But also getting involved at the beginning will help them form the service process relationships and fully integrate their firm's needs in the software. This is one of the critical areas of the quality that will eventually be reflected by this community and its software offering. Why the oil and gas companies continue to belittle the process and withhold their participation is beyond me. That however, is their problem as we can do this without the producers active involvement. They are critical for their individual needs, not the systems development.

Although I have detailed some of the technologies that are being used in this project. These technologies are not critical to the Preliminary Specification. In fact I want to eliminate any and all discussion of technology. It's not important and would be an impediment to the creative process that we are involved in. Using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct requires this blank slate approach. It has been the basis of how this design started, and as a result, will remain the key value of how this community provides the long term value to their client producers.

The deliverables from the Preliminary Specification will have a defined project scope. As a result, in subsequent phases of development we should not have any scope creep. Another key deliverable will be the development of the stories that communicate the systems needs to the developers. The last deliverable that I want to mention today will be how the CISP are able to take this design and integrate the software, through their service operation.

This sounds fairly ambitious, particularly from the point of view of the numbers of people. I would point out in my defense the name People, Ideas & Objects considers this. Also I would point out the spread of ideas to date. The Draft Specification has had over 1,500 people read Part I, and over 700 people read Part II. Think about that from the point of view of people having to spend a few hours reading this. If we draw a few hundred people out of this community, that have been reading and thinking about this system design, thinking about their involvement, bringing their ideas, and thinking how they can build a service offering to provide the producers with the most profitable means of oil and gas operation...

People are driving these changes, and their doing it from a business point of view. Trust me when I say that the developers will be able to accommodate any design that comes out of the Preliminary Specification. I guarantee it, therefore focusing on technology is a distraction. For the past 40 years it has been the technology that has driven the focus of oil and gas systems. The technologies and the compliance frameworks have made the oil and gas company about as foreign to the JOC as is possible to conceive. We are moving the focus away from technology to focus on the most profitable means of oil and gas operations.

In a world where the oil and gas producer will need to make more decisions based on ideas derived from the earth sciences and engineering basis of the business. A world where decisions are based on the legal and financial foundations of the participants of a JOC. The Community of Independent Service Providers and Users will capture this in the Preliminary Specification. Creating a system and organization that are representative of the underlying meeting of the minds of the producers involved. Please join me here.

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"Content will find you."

Writing a blog and pushing the idea of using the Joint Operating Committee is somewhat of a passive activity. You promote your ideas and marvel at the distribution and the growth of your statistics. The Internet, as a medium, is quite spectacular in compressing time lines and achieving things in a short period of time.

I've had this idea floating around in my mind that this passive method of aggregating users is the wrong approach. Particularly now as I have set 2009 as the point in time that I and 100 users begin the work on defining the Preliminary Specification and Community of Independent Service Providers. How do I go about doing this, sourcing these people.

Then from the back of my mind I remember the comment made by Cisco CEO John Chambers that "Content will find you." Interesting, I certainly have content. From the original idea of using the Joint Operating Committee (JOC) to the detailed Draft Specification which I think lays out a pretty clear vision of the significance of moving to the JOC. Content we have, therefore we have to actively go looking for the users. Chambers exact quote is as follows .

People talk about devices... but we think it's about the network. It will move from a generation about data and voice, more to visual networking, wired and wireless. We think the key content will find you, and we see changing business models reflecting this.

I think he is right. And indeed we have to switch gears in order to begin the task of getting the people necessary for this critical next step of defining the Preliminary Specification and building the Community of Independent Service Providers.

Great idea, how do we implement it. I have advertised with Google off and on and if you've had the opportunity to use those tools you'll agree their effectiveness is unquestionable. But they are relatively slow in terms of meeting the criteria of developing the Preliminary Specification and Community of Independent Service Providers. We need something more direct.

How do we find the people with the oil and gas operational experience and business development experience to make the oil and gas industry and the service industry operate based on the vision of the Draft Specification? I had set up a LinkedIn account last summer and determined that the "social networks" were more of a social then a business thing. I recently had the opportunity to check LinkedIn more thoroughly and have come away with a renewed appreciation.

After less then a week of using it, clearly LinkedIn is the "Network" tool that will enable the Community of Independent Service Providers and their collaborative efforts in defining the Preliminary Specification. With over 376,281 users that have classified themselves as in the Oil & Energy industry classification, sourcing 100 people should be possible, if not easy. If you have not used LinkedIn I highly recommend you sign in. The people that are on LinkedIn are more of a senior level in organizations and it is not a social network per se. Oh and the reason that its so valuable is that people who are using it are paying a monthly fee to access the service.

"Content will find you" is a valid concept and one that will be applied in this development. So as opposed to just saying join me here, I'll also being saying I'm looking to find you. Here is my LinkedIn profile.

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Why would accounting firms survive?

In the Draft Specification, I had documented the need for accounting firms to be heavily involved in a number of areas. Audit, compliance, consulting and technology implementation, training etc. In retrospect this was an oversight on my behalf and these activities should be handled by the community of users of the People, Ideas & Objects application.

Recall we have a situation where ideally the oil and gas investor is sitting at the JOC virtual table. It is the investors who are best able to represent their interests. Who they choose to ensure they meet compliance and governance is of importance. Asking once more, why would an oil and gas investor hire an accounting firm to handle their compliance audit and technology consulting?

These firms are a big part of the breakdown in the separation of ownership and management that led to the missalocation of capital and our current meltdown. They are the ones charged with the duty that management be held accountable and were on the front-lines throughout the last 70 years. In a nutshell they have failed. Not only have they failed, but they are also co-conspirators in creating the bubbles that have been built up in the last 10 years. These accounting firms should be treated as if they are radioactive. And that is how they will be treated in this software development project.

This might have become a fatal error on my part. So I am throwing this problem back to the community for resolution on how the investor can be assured that his compliance and governance is achieved. This specific issue should be resolved in the Preliminary Specification. And I would suggest that a clean slate approach be taken in line with the developing ideas of Carl Icahn.

The sad part of this episode is that I only realized my mistake when the accounting firms I contacted treated me like toxic waste. I must remember these accounting firms work for the management, and should therefore be dispatched to the garbage heap, pronto!

This is also why the 100 people needed to complete the Preliminary Specification should follow this process and join me here. To make sure that no more mistakes are made, and yes I do apologize for this.

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