Oracle Stack - Database and Middleware

With this post I will start to detail the various Oracle components that we will use in developing and delivering People, Ideas & Objects Draft and other Specifications. These posts will be aggregated under the "Oracle-Stack" label for future reference. I will also refresh the Draft Specification with the greater detail and information provided in these posts. Today, I want to do the easy lifting and talk about the Oracle Database and Middleware products.

What can't be said about the Oracle Database. It is remarkable that the value of Oracle is the vision that Larry Ellison continues to see for this product. Ellison is to databases what Steve Jobs is to the consumer. As it stands, the Oracle Database feature set is light years ahead of the IBM DB2 product offering. I don't know what IBM has been up to, although it doesn't appear to be too much based on the changes to DB2.

One of the key attributes of People, Ideas & Objects use of the Oracle Database is that the database rules. These object-relational mapping strategies frighten me. I started developing to the Oracle Database in 1993 and was quickly indoctrinated to relational theory. Nothing in the object-relational world provides a stronger argument then Oracle's implementation of relational theory.

That being stated we have to live in the real world, and accept that our world includes Java. So the architecture will follow along these lines. The database rules. That is to say all data operations that create, update or delete data are done by the database, based on database related logic. Application logic will be handled by Java and it will have the object-relational mapping between it and the database provided by Oracle's Toplink. This will provide the database integrity that will be necessary for the application to operate as it is required. So in summary, the application model, when creating, updating or deleting data will defer to the relational database for its operations.

Review of "Oracle's Database" layer of applications and frameworks introduces us to clustering, warehousing, security, compression, caching, search and other services. These will all be deployed as we are working within the cloud computing paradigm. The Security & Access Control module of the People, Ideas & Objects application will incorporate 100% of the Oracle Security, Oracle Identity, access control and our Military Command & Control Metaphor. This concludes the discussion on the Database layer and now we move to the middleware.

The same discussion noted above about the database ruling the applications logic when it comes to insert, update or delete operations applies in the middleware layer of the Oracle product offerings. What's important to note is that Oracle had me at "Fusion". This is an unbelievable grouping of applications that are designed to enable the cloud computing paradigm. Controlling all the elements of the technology stack, from silicon, Java, Solaris etc, which makes the paradigm a reality. My favorite product in this layer is the Oracle Coherence offering.

Of note we will also be moving from the GlassFish application server to Oracle's offering. This provides us with a substantial boost in terms of the performance of the servers. GlassFish remains the reference implementation, but Oracle has such strength in this area, that they have placed GlassFish one tier down from their Oracle WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition product. To repeat we will be using Oracle WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition.

This covers off the two bottom layers of the Oracle product offering. As you can see it was the easy lifting due to the fact that we have adopted both layers wholesale. Addition of the Military Command & Control Metaphor will be no easier, nor more difficult as a result of these changes.

Next up will be discussion of the Applications layer of Oracle products. The next post will be on the Application Integration Architecture, specifically. Much of the thinking that went into the development of the Draft Specification has similarly been adopted by Oracle. That is to say their design and ours really resonate.

One thing that we haven't discussed is the cost associated to moving to these products. My attitude is who cares. With the oil and gas industry being a primary industry generating $3.8 trillion per year, the associated costs of Oracle licenses will be far below one one-hundredth of 1%. ($381 million) or there about's.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, 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.

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Focused on the Product

Continuing on with our review of the eight focus areas of this project. Today I want to highlight the key benefits around the actual software application. These focus areas are compiled from our first quarter's, 30 compelling reasons that People, Ideas & Objects should be funded and developed.

The Product

People, Ideas & Objects is a customer of Oracle Corporations products. With the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Oracle now provides the hardware and software that we will use in building and providing our software solution to the oil and gas marketplace. In the past number of years Oracle has spent greater then $39 billion in research and acquisitions to make their products the best in the marketplace. With the closing of the Sun Microsystems acquisition, Oracle's offering is now in place and will be used to develop the People, Ideas & Objects application modules and deliver the solution in the cloud computing paradigm.

Today there is also a revolution in terms of the performance of software developers. Agile / Scrum / Lean based software development methodologies are enhancing team performance by metrics of 500 to 1,000 percent. Impressive yes, but more importantly they are eliminating the issues of waste in terms of the excessive cost, chronic lateness and off specification types of issues that have plagued software development for decades. This isn't the end of the problems in software development, just the first of many steps in making the customer focus the primary concern.

One of the many things that we have learned in this blog, and seem to be discovering from many different perspectives. Is that tacit knowledge, the collective understanding held by the users in the oil and gas industry, drives software definition. To preclude the user from the developments would preclude success, literally. Tacit knowledge can't be captured. The user has to have the tools developed to enable them to use their tacit knowledge in the most effective manner. That is the product focus of People, Ideas & Objects.

People, Ideas & Objects, although not a "pure" Open Source project provides the innovative oil and gas producer with open access to the software code that makes up the application. This provides the producer with access to the software code to ensure the application is performing as it should. I foresee the energy industry hiring a member of the CISP to verify the software code for audit and other purposes. This "openness" ensures that the use of the software is consistent with the needs of the innovative oil and gas producer.

Normally I would include the Costs associated with this development as part of the Product Focus. Although our total costs are high, early projections for development of the Draft Specification are in the range of $800 to $1 billion. These costs are allocated based on a low dollar per barrel of oil equivalent per year basis. (Just $1.00 per boe / year for 2010, potentially generating $10 million in the U.S. alone.) Making subscribing producers total ERP costs a small percentage of what those firms pay today. Importantly, as we are learning in our review of Alfred D. Chandler, "Strategy follows Structure". By using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer. People, Ideas & Objects enable the producer to focus on their key competitive advantages, the development and application of their earth science and engineering capabilities to their asset base.

Lastly I want to point out that the Apple iPad was released this past weekend. I think the product is a major turning point in the use of technology in business. Chaining one's self down to a desk became all the more ridiculous as a result of Apple's iPad. The ability to conduct your business anywhere and at anytime is now very real. Those producers who subscribe to People, Ideas & Objects will have direct benefit of products such as this. I recently noted some of the innovative ways that we intend to develop to these types of platforms, and have already documented some of the advantages of working with that platform.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, 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.

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Agile Teams - Business Analyst Position

Version One provides software for agile development teams. We have, and will continue to highlight a series of .pdf's they publish to help describe the various roles and responsibilities of agile team members. These are contained in blog posts here, here and under the Agile-Scrum label. Today we are highlighting another position thanks to Version One's .pdf "The Agile Business Analyst". [Note the link takes you to a page where you can request downloads of all their .pdf's.]

How many Business Analysts positions will be on People, Ideas & Objects twenty development teams depends on a number of factors that can't be determined at this time. There are however, many things that we can learn about the agile methodology and the work that will be done on those teams by reviewing all of Version One's .pdf's. So what is a Business Analyst on an Agile development team.

Agile development is having a significant impact on the Business Analyst community. Agile introduces a significant shift in how teams look at requirements and when they are defined in the process. Agile Business Analysts are an integrated part of the team throughout the life of the project and facilitate collaboration across a broader cross section of the project team and the business.

and

Collaboration, facilitation, leadership, coaching, and team building become significant new skills required for Business Analysts on Agile projects. Leadership and collaboration are key components critical to their success.

Gone are some inherent assumptions about the Business Analyst. The following list shows the difficulty in the position as has been defined in previous software development methodologies.

• Assumes that the customer can definitively know, articulate, and functionally define what the system or software should do at the end of the project
• Assumes that, once documented, the requirements will not change – at least not without potential project delays, budget overruns, or stunted feature sets
• Assumes that the requirements process is confined to a single product owner who sits apart from the development team envisioning the product
• Does not acknowledge the inherent uncertainty in software development that Agile methodologies seek to embrace

These four items are flawed from the outset. The agile team can not make these types of assumptions. It is certainly beyond the scope of reasonableness to assume that the Business Analysts can deal with this much ambiguity. Recall our recent blog post entitled "Designed to hit a moving target" that highlights a 47 minute presentation of the Agile Software Development Methodology. Version One then summarizes Agile Project Management in terms of what is possible.

Agile Project Management assumes that the processes required to create high-value working software in today’s economy are not predictable: requirements change, technologies change, and individual team member productivity is highly variable. When processes are not static and outcomes cannot be predicted within sufficient tolerance, we cannot use planning techniques that rely on predictability. Instead, we need to adjust the processes and guide them to create our desired outcomes. Agile project management does this by keeping progress highly visible, frequently inspecting project outcomes, and maintaining an ability to adapt as necessary to changing circumstances.

People, Ideas & Objects Draft Specification seeks to provide an overall vision of how the application would define and support the innovative oil and gas producer. This vision is the key input of the Preliminary Specification. This next quotation from Version One accurately captures what I think is a necessary deliverable from the Preliminary Specification.

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 Draft Specification is the vision, the Preliminary Specification is the breadth and the Detailed Specification is the depth. It's almost like we knew what we were doing! But seriously, the breadth of the application is of key concern to the producers in the oil and gas industry. If you want the application to mirror accurately what your organization should look like, then participation is mandatory. Participation requires that the producer firm fund these developments, and secondly get involved in these developments and help to define the breadth of the application within the Preliminary and Detailed Specifications.

Having a solid understanding of the breadth of project requirements early in the life-cycle helps the development team begin to define the set of possible solutions. The Business Analyst plays a key role facilitating the conversation between the product owner, executives, the technical team, and the QA team. The BA is a key player in ensuring that the full scope of requirements has been defined and balanced by an overall technical understanding of the solution.

The Business Analyst Position begins to have a significant impact on the quality of the developments from this point forward, the Detailed Specification.

Once the team has established the breadth of the solution, it is time to begin incrementally looking at the depth of the solution. The BA will typically take the lead helping the team bring the requirements down to this next level of detail. To incrementally look at the depth of the requirements, we have to abandon our traditional notions of the Marketing Requirements Document (MRD), Product Requirements Document (PRD) and the list of “the system shall” specifications. Instead, we focus on how the system is going to behave.

and

Much like the Agile Project Manager, the Agile Business Analyst will rely much more on people facilitation skills than they may have on traditional projects. The BA’s role is to facilitate a discussion between the product owner and the technical team. The BA will typically bring a tremendous amount of system knowledge to the discussion and is well positioned to draw out functional requirements from the product owner. BAs can also help translate user needs into more technical language for the developers.

People, Ideas & Objects assumes that the energy producer is organizationally constrained. The organizational ability to keep pace with the underlying changes in the earth science and engineering disciplines needs to be purpose built through the vision of the Draft Specification and this software development methodology. To suggest otherwise assumes that we have the time to contemplate alternatives, or to continue to muddle through. As is stated in Version One's conclusion to the Business Analyst Position, that is not an option.

Success in today’s economy requires us to respond quickly to changing market conditions. Traditional product delivery methodologies cannot deliver fast enough in highly uncertain project domains. Agile processes allow teams to meet the changing demands of their customers while creating environments where team members want to work.

March 31, 2010 is the deadline for raising our 2010 operating budget. After which a variety of consequences, such as financial penalties and a loss of one years time will occur. Our appeal should be based on the 30 compelling reasons of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, 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.

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McKinsey on User Participation

McKinsey & Company publish a blog entitled "Perspectives on Business Technology".

This site is published by the Business Technology Office of McKinsey & Company. It offers perspectives and points of view on topical business technology issues of interest to executives. Opinions are those of the authors and are not drawn from confidential client information.

They recently ran a short series of posts on 'user participation', a topic that is of keen interest to People, Ideas & Objects. We are focused on the user of the software defined in the Draft Specification. User driven software developments have proven themselves superior to the point where I believe it would be redundant to attempt to bring a solution to the market without the establishment of an active user community. The user community and the Community of Independent Service Providers are critical to the quality of People, Ideas & Objects.

McKinsey discuss the current state of user participation in this four post series. These posts can be found here, here, here and here. The process necessary to become a member of the user or CISP communities requires a little work on behalf of each individual. I feel it is important that once in the community the people are able to actively participate and contribute. The application process enables this through the development of the users own ideas and areas of interest. Once these are reflected in their summaries they will be posted in the wiki for all members of the communities to search and discover like minded people. Then the real fun can begin.

McKinsey note that there has to be a trade off. In their conclusion they note the balance required for high-quality participation should involve some effort.

Our recent observations suggest that participation is here to stay, but stimulating continued high-quality participation is complex. It requires a subtle balance of rewards and effort, a thoughtful segmentation of participants and a comprehension of the social structures of participation.

I think that we have been able to strike that balance with the expectations noted in the process to join People, Ideas & Objects. And that does not suggest that the process as it stand won't change. McKinsey note this is somewhat of a black art and we will try hard to find the right balance as we proceed.

These competencies are not easy to grasp, which explains the persistence of power curves of participation, and why only a small number of companies have been able to truly pull it off. But recent data also shows that mastering the art of enabling participation can deliver a major payoff.

March 31, 2010 is the deadline for raising our 2010 operating budget. After which a variety of consequences, such as financial penalties and a loss of one years time will occur. Our appeal should be based on the 26 compelling reasons of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, 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.

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Designed to hit a moving target

People, Ideas & Objects is an Agile software development developer. I've come upon a slide presentation that documents many of the key attributes of the Agile software development methodology. It's a 47 minute presentation that provides people with an understanding why the Agile processes are superior to past software development methodologies. The title of this entry captures accurately why Agile works.

Instead of repeating what is stated in the presentation, it would be better to explain how the Agile process will be implemented in People, Ideas & Objects. A key difference is the collocation of the teams for development. People, Ideas & Objects have the following policies regarding collocation.

Physical location is irrelevant. Particularly as Integrated Development Environments (IDE's) like NetBeans and Eclipse have tools to aid in developer communications. This collaborative area of IDE development has only begun and I expect to see many tools for the Agile teams collaborations to develop.

To access the full scope of the applications user community will require people to be involved from many different regions, many different firms and many different disciplines. If we were to attempt to put everyone under the same roof, we wouldn't get anything done. With the volume of anticipated teams being 20, having 200 developers within one region would be counter-productive from the point of view of user input. Working virtually is key to the success of this project.

Generally, it should be considered that a team be within the same time zones. Are dedicated full time to the development of their People, Ideas & Objects modules, and have access to users. Exceptions to this will occur, particularly as we wish to access teams in India and other regions. If collocation becomes an issue to the performance of the team, then we can "tune" the team by bringing them to one location for a two week period to work out the performance related issues.

Access to developers. To developers the tools they use are the same irrespective of where they are. If they are collocated within the same offices as the other team members, or across the country, it does not matter, in my opinion. What does matter is access to quality developers. If we were limited to acquiring the developers from just one city, it would constrain us in terms of our demands for quality software. The energy industry has traditionally not developed a software development capability of the scope that People, Ideas & Objects demands. Therefore to access the talent we need, we will not be putting any physical constraint on the co-location of team members.

As the discussion in the previous paragraph discussed developers, the same can be stated about users and the Community of Independent Service Providers. When do we start? As soon as there is a financial commitment. We'll then settle on the scope of the application, break down the modules into sub-modules and build the user base and software development capabilities.

March 31, 2010 is the deadline for raising our 2010 operating budget. After which a variety of consequences, such as financial penalties and a loss of one years time will occur. Our appeal should be based on the 21 compelling reasons of how better the oil and gas industry and its operations could be handled. They may not be the right way to go, but we are committed to working with the various communities to discover and ensure the right ones are.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, 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.

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McKinsey Organizational Capabilities

McKinsey have published the results of a recent survey. Their survey was on the topic of building organizational capabilities. People, Ideas & Objects is designed to provide the oil and gas industry with an ERP systems development capability. A user driven capability that provides the innovative oil and gas producer with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. Key to this objective is the ability of the producer firm to focus on its strategic assets. And build the science and engineering capabilities necessary to exploit their talent and assets.

I would argue that with the financial crisis and the soon to be insatiable demand for energy. Will require industry to focus on developing these capabilities. However, I am satisfied with the survey result suggesting:

Nearly 60 percent of respondents to a recent McKinsey survey say that building organizational capabilities such as lean operations or project or talent management is a top-three priority for their companies. Yet only a third of companies actually focus their training programs on building the capability that adds the most value to their companies’ business performance.

The last sentence of that quotation is an area where the Community of Independent Service Providers have another business opportunity. It was noted here the other day that the CISP could research, develop and implement principles of and consulting services for the area of organizational behavior. Building organizational capabilities in focusing the producer on the engineering and earth science disciplines may very well be another area where the CISP could develop a substantial business. That is not to suggest that the CISP is involved in the direct science and engineering, McKinsey provides a good definition of the context.

We defined a capability as anything an organization does well that drives meaningful business results. The survey explored which capabilities are most critical to a company’s business performance and why they focus on the capabilities they do. It also asked executives how their companies create and manage training and skill-development programs and how effective those programs are in maintaining or improving on their priority capabilities.

I believe the oil and gas needs a strong software development capability. Software is an area where value can be built in all industries. If users are able to think of new and innovative ways of doing business, the ability to change to those new ways is dependent on the software that defines and supports the organization. In a science focused business such as oil and gas. Where innovation on those sciences will accelerate substantially in the decades to come. The capabilities within the producer, and the software development capability that is discussed on this blog, are areas where value can be built. According to the McKinsey survey results, this concern / objective is not generally shared.

Sixteen percent of respondents in China and 20 percent in India say capability building is a top priority for their companies—versus 10 percent overall and 8 percent in North America.

and

Respondents at companies whose training programs are effective in maintaining or improving the drivers of business performance also say their companies pay more attention to tools that support or enable capability building, such as standard operating procedures, IT systems, and target setting and metric tracking.

People, Ideas & Objects has been resisted by the management of oil and gas. They know that if there is no software developed that competes with their way of doing business, they can retire in riches. Building a capability is managements conflict of interest.

In addition, although resistance to change is often viewed as a barrier to building new capabilities, almost as many respondents to this survey identified a lack of resources and an unclear vision as barriers.

Within People, Ideas & Objects I have specified a Technical Vision of how IT will impact oil and gas. There is also a User Vision of how the users will interact within the system. And the Draft Specification details a vision of how and what the software will do for the oil and gas producer. What is management's vision of the future?

To reiterate this is an area where much value can be created. The producer firms will be challenged in ways that we can't imagine today. To prepare for this eventuality, the Community of Independent Service Providers will be able to prepare their clients in the fashion that McKinsey discusses in this survey's results. These are the types of businesses that can be developed by the CISP. I will continue to highlight areas where I think the most value can be generated to the producers, and earned by the CISP.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, 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.

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Google App Script and App Engine

Each user of People, Ideas & Objects is provided with a "Google Apps account for your domain". This includes Gmail, Calendar, Documents [Document, Presentation and Spreadsheet] and Sites applications. If necessary users will also be provided with access to SalesForce.com applications. All of these applications are included and accessed as part of the Security & Access Control Module of the Draft Specification. There are many other Google applications like Contacts, Start-Page, Groups and Chat but two of the most useful to the users might be Google App Script and Google App Engine.

Recall the purpose of the Security & Access Control Module is two-fold. First providing the data security and integrity of the producers information, and access control based on the Military Command & Control Metaphor. It is this module that enables and limits the users domain to that which they are authorized by their client producers and Joint Operating Committee's.

What People, Ideas & Objects provides is the software development capability that users need. Transaction processing, transaction design and marketplace application modules to name a few types of functions. This development capability is to build the software tools users need to exercise their tacit knowledge of the oil and gas industry. There is also a small area of functionality where it may be necessary to have ad-hoc queries and reports generated. Having the People, Ideas & Objects developers involved in these application types becomes expensive.

I'm assuming that the line between the two forms of processing, heavy industrial vs. lightweight, is understood by most users. This post is about the ad-hoc lightweight tools that users will have available to them within the Google Apps applications that are embedded within the Security & Access Control Module of the Draft Specification.

Google App Script is very similar to the advanced features in Excel. The ability to access data however, I think, is much more advanced then Excel. These Java Script scripts are not limited in any fashion. The user therefore inherits the web interface for these programs that they might write. Google has recently published a tutorial on the use of Google App Script that shows the power of this technology. If you have a Google account you can access these from within the Spreadsheet application included in Google Docs. The tutorial and API are available to get you started.

Google App Engine is substantially more capable. Particularly from the point of view of the Java based service. There are only two areas where the user is limited from accessing. The file system and threads. Best of all the SDK is able to be run in an IDE like NetBeans or Eclipse (both of which are free) which allows you to leverage the entire Java community. Powerful stuff, where the initial costs of running applications is next to nothing. Members of the Community of Independent Service Providers could also use Google App Engine to run applications for their own businesses.

I see a very large role for the user based applications described in this post, the Google tutorials and elsewhere. Having a "Swiss Army Knife" type of application is very valuable. The key difference between these services and the Draft Specification Modules is the ability to write data back to People, Ideas & Objects databases. That has to be handled in a fashion that can't be accommodated with the two tools we are talking about here today. However, Google App Engine provides you with access to Google's Big Table to store your own data.

If your an enlightened producer, an oil and gas director, 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.

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Why would producers pay?

It is argued that oil and gas producers do not have the requisite motivation to fund the budget of People, Ideas & Objects. My concern in pushing this budget cycle is that the motivation to make the necessary changes has receded from the mindset of people in the industry. When the financial crisis was at its height, all seemed to be in desperate need of bringing about change. Now that the pressure brought on by the crisis doesn't exist, the sense of urgency to address these problems has passed. We have survived to live another day. To approach the manner in which business is conducted is off the radar of the majority of people within the industry.

It is far better that this has happened now then having it happen in the middle of our developments. I don't expect that "all is well" will be the call even as early as later this year. We have solved none of the problems that brought the system close to collapse. Stuffing the economy with up to $17 trillion in stimulus and cash has had a strong effect. The performance of the bureaucracy remains questionable and the opportunity for them to continue on, I'll agree, is well entrenched. What this imputes is that the only time something like People, Ideas & Objects can be developed is during a complete collapse of the industry.

So here is to living happily ever after. This last ditch attempt to acquire some funding to keep moving forward looks less probable each day. We'll certainly continue on until March 31, 2010 and see what might come about, after that we will have to evaluate everything in light of the funding failure.

In answer to the question that is being asked, why would the producers pay? The People, Ideas & Objects value proposition shares the one-time software development costs across the production profile of the industry. Simply the producer, like the user, will attain greater value by contributing then it's costs. As evidenced in yesterday's example of the start-up oil and gas producer. The engineer does not have to incur the overhead necessary to maintain compliance with the various regulatory agencies.

The People, Ideas & Objects software and the Community of Independent Service Providers (CISP) is a critical aspect of how the producers compliance is achieved. The tacit knowledge of the industry is held by the people that work in the business. The software can not capture this knowledge, but what can happen with People, Ideas & Objects is the CISP define, build and use the software tools needed to do their jobs.

Where we'll stand on March 31, 2010 in terms of our future is quite exhilarating. Nothing focuses the mind quite like this type of situation. What we need to be doing is getting to the business of the business of oil and gas. We face a questionable future, and the complexity and difficulty is only accelerating.

On a related note, I find the "elite" economists oddly sharing my frustration at the pace of these changes. Simon Johnson and this Reason Magazine piece are good examples of opportunities potentially being lost.

Needless to say we still have not received any expression of support, commitments or funding. [Maybe I should be the one to get the message.] 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.

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Product Owner - Position

The Agile / Scrum software development methodology has many predefined roles. The Product Owner is one of them, and Product Owners are a part of the Scrum team. People, Ideas & Objects will have many Product Owners. One for each of 20 possible Scrum teams. [Eleven defined modules of the Draft Specification, User-Interface, Architecture, Data model etc.]

Project Owners are "pigs" in the scrum world. Pigs, unlike Chickens, have everything invested at the breakfast table. An appropriate term in my opinion. Their job is simple, satisfy all stakeholder concerns. Working with the many Account Managers of producers and their users, the Community of Independent Service Providers, (CISP) and their Scrum Team members. Product Owners will be the individuals who magically prioritize the developments to meet the changing needs of the producers.

By adopting Oracle technologies People, Ideas & Objects inherits their entire technology stack. An Open yet integrated technology stack like no other. Making the Draft Specification and subsequent designs executable is no small task, we are grateful for the vision and execution of Oracle Hardware & Software. We are also constrained by those technologies, and it will be the Product Owners that feel those constraints the most.

By adopting Oracle we will have an advanced tool set and infrastructure to deal with. Our developers and particularly our Product Owners will have to be intimately familiar with Oracle technologies. This is the standard means of Oracle application delivery in the marketplace. There is a substantial marketplace of Oracle consultants available to People, Ideas & Objects and associated communities. In addition to the need to be familiar with the Oracle technology stack, Product Owners will need to be intimately familiar with the oil and gas industry, generic business needs and their "products". I'm just glad I already have a job at People, Ideas & Objects.

By way of a scenario, as the Product Owner of the Petroleum Lease Marketplace (PLM) Module a day might look similar to this... The Product Owner reviews a small sample of email messages, and prior days edits to the wiki. Edits and comments from the 500 Account Managers and 27,000 users who use the PLM. Account Managers are at times representative of the collective desires of these 27,000 users. These users have compiled a wish list of 1,000 user stories of what they need and want in the PLM software. Although daunting, the solutions to each can be represented by making 15 major changes in the PLM. The Product Owner has been blogging about these 15 proposed changes, for a number of weeks. These changes are also passionately felt by many of the members in the CISP. As always, major changes in the software can be brought into production with one two-week sprint. The Project Owner has recruited a representative group of users from 12 producers to work with the developers during that sprint. The Product Owner sets tomorrow for the team to begin these developments. Suddenly she realizes it's 7:30 in the morning and she has to get ready to catch a flight to Europe for the bi-annual People, Ideas & Objects user conference...

A little creative license is handy. 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.

Technorati Tags: People's Project-Owner Passion Oracle PLM Development CISP Agile-Scrum
 

Hardware Policies & Procedures

Let's talk about that 800 pound Gorilla that's sitting in the room. That is the desire of the management of oil and gas producers to control their data, their software code and the hardware their applications run on. With this post, management will see how it is they have those attributes under their control in a manner that gets this animal out of the room.

Hardware and software are two areas that need to be addressed in providing the People, Ideas & Objects application to its users. The software is as has been detailed elsewhere, open source providing the producer firm to see what their applications are doing. This opportunity may best be managed in the hands of a consortium of professional accounting firms that review and verify the code on behalf of their clients, the producers. The hardware is proposed to be handled in the following manner. This proposal is valid until April 30, 2010 and is dependent on producer firms, shareholders and investors funding the 2010 software development budget.

By way of granting an exclusive license to run the binary of People, Ideas & Objects, People, Ideas & Objects earn an interest in a subsidiary corporation. This firms sole purpose will be to run that binary in manner that is consistent with the innovative oil and gas producers needs. The only caveats that I place on this firm is the hardware is sourced from Oracle and is "cloud" based in its delivery. We do not need to have a disjointed hardware service that is scattered around the globe. Centers could be located in Calgary, Houston, Dallas, Aberdeen, Riyadh, Rio de jeneiro, Malaysia or Mexico City. But only one location within each logical region. In Wednesday's Oracle presentation Larry Ellison asked "How could you be against Cloud Computing, that's all there is."

An equal portion of the firm will be granted to Oracle in providing them the ways and means to profit from the firms activities. Oracle will need to have Data Base Administrators (DBA's) servicing the user and producers. The fact that these facilities will be all Oracle products might be an opportunity for Oracle to make a donation of hardware, software or services in recognition of that.

The industry will then provide the start-up funds for this hardware and service. These are expected to run up to $2 million and the industry earns their equal interest. Therefore Oracle, the industry and People, Ideas & Objects will each own one third of the firm and each will have some skin in the game as they say. But this will still not satisfy anyone with the removal of the monkey.

With the granting of the license to run the binary, Paul Cox or my designate, will sit as the Chairman and have two votes on the board of directors. Oracle and industry will each have one designate. The president of this hardware firm will be the innovative oil and gas producers designate, as will all of the staff of the facilities. The Chairman will have limited access to the facilities in all ways and at all times. In addition to running the binary of the application, these facililties will host the development environment for People, Ideas & Objects.

Invoicing of the costs associated with running the facilities will be sent to People, Ideas & Objects. These funds will be sourced from the annual assessments paid by the innovative oil and gas producers.

The Hardware Policies & Procedures satisfy the needs of industry with respect to their data, their processing and the costs associated with running these facilities. Absolute administrative control is provided to the producers. Oracle will provide their hardware, software and services in such a manner as the administration deems necessary and in compliance with the license granted.

This structure is proposed to expire on April 30, 2010, and is contingent on our 2010 budget fully secured. The oil and gas producers have a fully motivated team operating this critical resource. 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. 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.

Technorati Tags: People's Oracle Development Organization Policies Proposal
 

It's cold down here.

In other words, hell has frozen over and were moving to Oracle. If you stare at a brick wall long enough...

As a customer of Sun Microsystem products, and as a result of Oracle's acquisition of Sun, we become an enthusiastic Oracle Customer. The five hour presentation provided by Oracle on Wednesday was breath taking. People, Ideas & Objects will have the compelling vision of the Draft Specification, the rabid users fueled by that vision; organized in their own communities, and now the ability to execute our plans on Oracle hardware, software and services.

The relationship that People, Ideas & Objects will have with Oracle is as a customer. People, Ideas & Objects represents the oil and gas producers technology needs, first and foremost. That may cause some difficulties with the Oracle people, however, I am extremely comfortable with it. We are the ones that are responsible for Quality & Velocity and as Oracle knows, money talks. The President of Oracle made the following comments today.

As always, our primary goal is 100% customer satisfaction. We are dedicated to delivering without interruption the quality of support and service that you have come to expect from Oracle and Sun, and more. Oracle plans to enhance Sun customer support by improving support access, offering better interoperability support between Oracle and Sun products and delivering services in more local languages. Support procedures for your existing Sun and Oracle products are unchanged, so for now you should continue to use the same channels you've been using. Customers can continue to purchase products from Sun in the same way they did prior to the acquisition. We will communicate any changes to this through regular channels.

Tomorrow will see the publication of our Hardware Policies & Procedures. This will detail how the cloud component of People, Ideas & Objects is constructed, owned and operated.

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. 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.

Technorati Tags: People's Oracle Development Organization
 

Complex Adaptive Systems

Today I'm opening a new line of research in this blog. We are now turning the corner and beginning the process of becoming an organization that builds the application defined in the Draft Specification. Back as far as May 2004, in the Preliminary Research Report, self-organizing teams have been part of this software development project. Not just the software developers, the self-organizing and adaptive team concepts are being applied to the User groups and the Community of Independent Service Providers. With this post I'll begin aggregating this research on the "Agile / Scrum" Technorati Tag, and Label.

Why do we want to do this? I am of the belief that the software code that defines and supports the innovative oil and gas producer will never be static. Constant change and improvement are a necessary underlying requirement of supporting the earth science and engineering capabilities of the oil and gas producer. A producer may discover through using the many Marketplace modules; other ways of doing things that are more effective. Just because this new method may be a 10 fold increase in the way things were done before, doesn't mean that another doubling isn't just around the corner. A committed software developer and user community is a cornerstone of the innovative oil and gas producer, and what People, Ideas & Objects is structured to achieve.

Another reason we are doing "Complex Adaptive Systems" (CAS) is the fact that the scope and scale of the application modules is beyond what can be achieved in the traditional ways of organization. Add to that the demands of the energy marketplace will soon outstrip what the producers can deliver. There will soon be the need for an acceleration in performance of the oil and gas industry, that is multiples of today's performance. If engineering and earth sciences required $1.00 per barrel of oil in 1997 they may need $15.00 today and $40 in the very near future. Much of this may be solved through faster computers, the point is weather your using a slide rule or a supercomputer the volume of engineering, and earth sciences is fixed and growing, logarithmically.

We see today's pricing of oil and gas supports this growing technical requirement. I am not of the opinion that management of oil and gas companies are even concerned about this issue. They have been able to increase revenues and profits for the past 5 years on the basis of doing nothing. Their actions have put us behind the eight ball in terms of delivering this software in a reasonable time frame. It is needed now, and they are all the wealthier by messing things up for the world economy.

Complex Adaptive Systems is a team concept that has enabled the software teams to approach 500% increases in performance, and there will be more in the near future. Applying these concepts to the design and architecture of the Users and CISP will provide similar metrics. And yes, I see the Joint Operating Committee being the Complex Adaptive System that it is. Having an industry operate on these principles is what is required to supply the world with the energy to fulfill what is possible. If your an investor or shareholder in oil and gas and wish to support financially these teams, please join us here. And if your a user that sees this type of application providing the solution to the industry, please join us here.

Technorati Tags: People's Agile-Scrum Development CISP User

Professor Paul Romer, Endogenous Technical Change

We are in the middle of a comprehensive review of Professor's Carliss Baldwin and Eric von Hipple new working paper "Modelling a Paradigm Shift: From Producer Innovation to User and Open Collaborative Innovation". In the last post we learned that innovation within the community of People, Ideas & Objects is considered "a non-rival good: each participant in a collaborative effort gets the value of the whole design, but incurs only a fraction of the design cost." Music to my ears and a definitive benefit when a user considers their potential involvement in this community.

In a related document, Professor Paul Romer's October 1990 "Endogenous Technical Change"  discusses the impact of these non-rival goods impact on economic growth.

Growth in this model is driven by technological change that arises from international investment decisions made by profit-maximizing agents. The distinguishing feature of the technology as an input it that it is neither a conventional good nor a public good; it is a non-rival, partiallyexcludable good.

These non-rival goods are being codified in the Draft Specification and developed by this community in the Preliminary Specification. The community will also develop their value adding service offerings, to be used with the People, Ideas & Objects software applications they've developed, in providing their producer clients with the most profitable means of oil and gas operations. I'd like to see Oracle compete with that.

What I want to highlight is Professor Romer's note that mankind's progress was constrained for a long period of time. Not until we were able to rise above the grind of working for our basic needs did we move forward.

This result offers one possible way to explain the wide variation in growth rates observed among countries and the fact that in some countries growth in income percapita has been close to zero. This explanation is reminiscent of the explanation for the absence of growth in prehistoric time that is offered by some historians and anthropologists: civilization, and hence growth, could not begin until human capital could be spared from the production of goods for immediate consumption.

Taken in this context it is clear to me that the community and these software applications have the capacity to significantly increase the productivity of the oil and gas producer. Our way of economic organizations have brought us to the point where we are today. To move forward in the future we need to revisit the ways in which we conduct business. And that is my desire for the oil and gas industry with this blog, software and communities development. What Romer has to state on this point is clearly beneficial for all concerned.

The most interesting positive implication of the model is that an economy with a large stock of human capital will experience faster growth. This finding suggests that free international trade can act to speed up growth. It also suggests a way to understand what it is about developed economies in the twentieth century that permitted rates of growth of income percapita that are unprecedented in history.

We stand on the shoulders of giants and begin a process of such great potential. Please join me here in 2010.

Technorati Tags: People's Romer Community Specification CISP Development

Changing deck chairs on the Titanic

I should thank SAP for this post. They have published a YouTube video of their use of Google Wave, and its all that I thought that Google Wave could be used for. Here's the Video.

What the video doesn't show is the level of security being used and the location of the individuals. It is more then reasonable to assume these individuals are located at various different places and could theoretically be anywhere, and through a standard browser. It is also possible to provide the highest levels of security that are technically possible to those users, wherever they may be. And these attributes are well reflected in the video, but I have to argue the damage that a tool such as this would bring to any oil and gas company.

What is it that SAP is missing in terms of providing this solution? What we learned in the Preliminary Research Report was that change needed to be introduced in the proper fashion. Specifically the cognitive and motivational paradox are key issues that are not being addressed in SAP's use of Google Wave. The cognitive paradox identifies that people perceive the new with an understanding from the old. Taking the old and superimposing their understanding on the new is a danger in SAP's use of Google Wave. The motivational paradox recognizes that people are concerned more with production, or getting their job done, then learning the new methods or tools. These two paradox have been critical in the need to understand how change is introduced in the Draft Specification. Simply there has to be a clearly defined break from the old. A significant break in which the new can be approached in the manner that is somewhat a blank slate.

Change for the sake of change, is wrong. Particularly with SAP's use of a new technical tool. Technically driven change is a disaster in the making. That is why People, Ideas & Objects is basing these changes in the strong economic forces in today's depression. Orchestrating this level of change is not possible unless there is the type of economic reforms that people like Professor Carlota Perez speak of. The old dinosaur bureaucracies are failing, actively destroying shareholder value, and are leading to the renewal for new and innovative ideas and organizations. This opportunity is ours to take.

I see serious problems in allowing this type of powerful technology (The Google Wave application, not the SAP application) introduced without any support for the changes made. And more importantly without the full consent of the management or ownership of the firm. In this video they introduce a number of people who collaborate on a new process that does not have the requisite authority or responsibility to make any changes. Designing things because they can collaborate does not make it a valid process. In oil and gas I could take Google Wave and quickly write a new process that would involve the collaborations of any number of producers involved in a Joint Operating Committee. This would be dangerous and irresponsible, that SAP misses this point is of concern to me. This is also why the Draft Specification developed the Military Command & Control Metaphor.

Particularly for a publicly traded company, decisions and actions have to have a document-able audit trail, compliance and governance implemented and operational. When we think of a JOC we have multiple organizations legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural and communication frameworks. It is my opinion that allowing this type of application, of which many examples have been written about here, is irresponsible for the management to allow. I also have an opinion that management are not that interested in working that hard to stop this type of activity. Just as they do not go out of their way to be more proactive with respect to compliance or governance. As I said it is just irresponsible of management to "allow" this to happen, but chaos may be the better choice for them to make.

In oil and gas management's sole concern is the compliance and governance of the company. It is People, Ideas & Objects "design" to have the compliance and governance moved from the bureaucracy to align them with the legal, financial, operational decision making, communication and cultural frameworks of the Joint Operating Committee. As one learns in most MBA programs the separation of operational decision making and compliance leads to no accountability. This is managements to exploit in the current market. There motivation is to ensure they are not eliminated by having compliance and governance more accurately managed within the software.

We have also learned that the division of labor is the primary means of enabling economic growth. The video shows the influence of many different people involved in the process, however, it is more a matter of convenience that these people are motivated and the scope is based on expedience. When we consider the interactions of people through a JOC we have interactions that, if left to an ad-hoc development, would not provide the value that the appropriate analysis would bring. As I have frequently mentioned, the current oil and gas industry is populated with potentially thousands of different jobs as a result of the growth of the industry. Allowing poorly implemented technologies such as SAP is doing in the video can lead to a destruction of that division of labor for something that is not efficient. Leading to the chaos mentioned and presenting to all the kings horses and all the kings men, the never ending story of Humpty Dumpty.

We are entering a world where the tools are very sophisticated and capable of significant benefit to society, if used properly. We are also viewing the world from a high level of sophistication in terms of its economic order or division of labor. These are being altered without an appreciation or understanding of how fatal even a small decline might cause the company. Management should be concerned at what might happen when falling from these lofty heights. Making undocumented changes and not implementing the appropriate levels of compliance and governance is irresponsible, bordering on criminal. Managements have been able to disassociate themselves from the shareholders and investors by entrenching themselves in a rigid compliance framework. This is also why no one has ever been fired for recommending SAP.

Ah the things you can say when you've been ostracized for your ideas, truly liberating.

Technorati Tags: People's Perez Change Collaboration Development Economics Google

What about those prices.

Two conversations that are taking place are the relatively high oil, and the low natural gas prices. The opposite directions of oil and gas prices seems to be a result of the North American natural gas markets being satisfied by shale gas developments. What is the future of these prices.

It would seem to me that the economic developments and stimulus have done nothing to stem the depression we find ourselves in. The U.S. dollar is under attack and they seem not to be able to, or want to do anything to stop the decline. Those individuals that are holding U.S. bonds will soon realize the pain that was delivered to mortgage holders last year. As big as the mortgage market is, the size of the U.S. bond market will have as big and if not bigger dent's in the world economy. Hang on to your hats.

So the demand for energy may fall further, this is almost a guarantee as I see it. The two economic phenomenon that I have been banking on this past decade. The transition between the old to the new economy. And, the increasing difficulty for the bureaucracy to produce and explore for oil & gas. That I never put these two theories together, and predict that the prices would collapse shows how real life is always surprising.

So there we have it. The next step down in the economy is baked in the cake and the shock will hit the commodity markets, and the oil and gas prices will decline. The decline in prices will be sharp enough to bring great difficulty to the producers. We have moved to a high production cost environment. The management have hung their hats on the phenomenal earnings they made last year based on those higher prices. I wonder if they will take the blame as much as they took the credit for those spectacular results. Lets hope they do and are summarily fired as they should be.

What's driving these price declines. The inability of producers to be able to shut in production is causing the prices to collapse for the short to mid-term. Some producers have been able to shut in their 100% owned properties. Properties that have multiple owners are able to shut in production through the operational decision making framework of the Joint Operating Committee. The problem is that the ability to do so, in a material way, is constrained by the sheer numbers of JOC's and the contractual commitments of the producers. The conflict within the participants of the JOC is unable to be resolved because in essence, no one clearly identifies the JOC as the key organizational construct of the energy producer.

Why would the industry continue to produce at the volumes they are when these volumes are killing the prices. Shutting down of any future activity has been the very dull tool the industry has used to weather the storms. Not spending money on drilling more wells and facilities has been taking place now for almost two years. Earnings are in significant decline with not many companies showing a strong balance sheet or reserves. The traditional price-taker mentality is in full effect with no one seriously considering the necessary mechanisms to reduce the amount of product being brought on the market.

Continuous production of product in the face of such a dire forecast shows the need to have the systems and organizational structures of the industry rebuilt. Specifically around the JOC and with the systems I have described as the Draft Specification. I sought to resolve this problem by putting into place the necessary mechanisms for the Joint Operating Committee to determine at which price levels would trigger a 10% decrease, and if future declines needed another 10% decline in production, at what price level that would occur. Giving an automated means for the JOC to predetermine what is best for the property.

These conflicts and contradictions in oil and gas are are no longer able to meet the needs of the industry. Time has now come for the producers to act and support this software's development. Or, they can continue to watch the prices decline further and further and hope no one fires their buts. It has been well known for a very long period of time the energy price elasticity. Meaning that large price changes are brought about by small changes in production. Management I'm sure are hoping that these economic principles don't apply to them, and will wait it out to see if that is the case.

Continuing to muddle along as a corporate strategy is now putting the industry in serious jeopardy. Without the appropriate tools to manage the business, the management are damaging their shareholders investment and the industry capability. Leaving it in their hands is irresponsible in my mind, we should be building the software and community that will support the innovative oil and gas producer for the future.

Let me make it absolutely clear so that there will be no confusion. I have received no support and no funds from the industry for this project. Zero! In September 2003 I was ostracized and kicked to the curb when I first proposed these ideas to management. And laughed at by those perfect management teams since. It is not recommended that anyone should expect that operational code be written and waiting for companies to start using. What I have done since 2003 is complete the Preliminary Research Report. Researched the viability of a system based on the JOC. Based these ideas on an economic and academic foundation that total's over 700,000 words on this blog. And detailed a vision of what the systems would look like when the industry is using the JOC as the key organizational construct. The software development of that vision is what is needed to be done, and from scratch for lack of a better word. I have done everything humanly possible to make this vision real. It is not my fault that people will be disappointed with the progress of this project. Please join me here.

Technorati Tags: People's CISP Economics Development Change