The Preliminary Specification Part XVIII (PA Part IV)

In yesterday’s post we discussed how the Joint Operating Committee was able to manage who was available to work for the property. The ability to pool the earth science and engineering resources from the partnership is something that is asserted as being a necessity in the future of the oil and gas industry. It should be stated here as well that the Military Command & Control Metaphor would not be limited to just the earth science and engineering disciplines, but would include everyone that is employed within the producer firms. So yesterday’s post would help us to deal with the who, now we need a mechanism to deal with what it is they will be doing.

The next part of the Partnership Accounting module deals with the operational side of how the field work within the Joint Operating Committee gets completed. Partnerships have always had AFE’s and operations budgets to deal with how much will be spent on an annual basis at a facility etc. And those continue in their traditional ways in the People, Ideas & Objects application. This post deals with how the Military Command Control & Metaphor can deploy the resources and authorize the spending of budgets in a manner that provides for the governance of the Joint Operating Committee. Simply we are talking about the Collaborative Work Order System that is part of the Partnership Accounting and other modules. (Compliance & Governance, Petroleum Lease Marketplace, Resource Marketplace modules).

Deployment of the people within the Joint Operating Committee, with the budgets that are agreed to are not enough to satisfy any interpretation of adequate governance. Proper authorization and responsibility needs to be assigned to ensure that plans and budgets are executed successfully. Without a work order system within the People, Ideas & Objects application the governance of the property would not be possible. The ways and means of successfully controlling costs and deploying the resources in a manner to complete the tasks at hand are what the work order system is designed to complete.

The manner in which the work order system will be deployed will be as follows. If someone asks you to work on a project, your first question should be is “what’s your work order number.” Then you immediately start charging your time to the code. It doesn’t matter if your an employee of the producer where the request came from, a partner in a Joint Operating Committee or a vendor or supplier. If they don’t have a work order number you hang up the phone. If they have a number, you key the work order number into your device or keyboard and continue talking. The work order system will aggregate and bill your time while working on that project. The details, chain of command, tasks and deliverables are all delivered within the work order system that was provided when you keyed the number.

Note that one of the benefits of this system is that no work gets done without a work order. Assigning budgets from either an AFE or from internally sourced overhead accounts will be a matter of selecting from budget accounts or from pre-approved allocations. The ability to approve a work order would therefore be at an appropriate level within the chain of command of the Joint Operating Committee designated through the Military Command & Control Metaphor (involving multiple producers). If a work order were to exceed its budget it is reasonable to assume that it was exceeding its AFE or account budget(s if it involved multiple producers) as well, which could trigger action from the Compliance & Governance module of the People, Ideas & Objects application, if that is what management desired or deemed necessary and established in that module.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

The Preliminary Specification Part XVII (PA Part III)

Picking up from our Friday discussion on the use of the material balance report in the Partnership Accounting module. We discussed the geographical and operational scope of the module and you may recall that it included the entire upstream oil and gas operations infrastructure. I want to highlight the importance of this discussion about the material balance report and note that it is to be continued on in a number of future posts in the Accounting Voucher module. I wanted to introduce the scope of the oil and gas operations that we are dealing with in the Partnership Accounting module, and deal with some of the partner accounting issues first before we get into the Accounting Voucher module which is the next module we will be reviewing.

The first Partnership Accounting issue is related to the fact that the earth science and engineering resources that are of such value in the industry are of a finite number. It is asserted here in People, Ideas & Objects (PI&O) that the “operator” classification may become a thing of the past as firms will find it difficult to staff the engineering and earth science capabilities necessary to meet all of the needs of their firm. PI&O enables producers in a Joint Operating Committee to pool their human resources to ensure they have the required technical needs. The pooling wont be a convenience or nice to have at the Joint Operating Committee level. It will be a necessity for the partners within a property to ensure that adequate staffing of the technical resources are secured. That it will become commonplace that each of the partners are contributing technical resources to the property.

If partners are contributing human resources to the Joint Operating Committee then the systems that the partners use should be able to cost these resources, charge them to the joint account, and have their costs recovered by the firm providing the resource. This also brings up the point that if the operator classification has ceased to be valid, the charges for operator overhead, where the recovery of these costs are realized today, the operator overhead charges should also cease to be valid. If three different producers are providing engineers and geologists to the Joint Operating Committee each should be able to recover the direct or standard costs of these individuals for the time they spent working on the property.

What has been included in the Draft Specification and will be discussed here later in the Preliminary Specification is the Military Command & Control Metaphor (MCCM). The MCCM provides a means in which the resources within the producer companies represented within the Joint Operating Committee, can organize a chain of command through the pooled resources to deal with the governance of the property. This governance along with the ability to cost these resources enables producers to allocate the finite earth science and engineering resources more efficiently. This also assumes that during the building of the Preliminary Specification, that the community is able to determine a somewhat standard chain of command for all members of the industry, standard rates for the people in the industry, and detailed job descriptions for the work that each role within that chain of command are responsible for.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

McKinsey, On Getting IT Spending Right

How do we know when we’re spending the right amount of money on Information Technology. McKinsey have an answer to this difficult question in an article entitled “Getting IT Spending Right This Time”. Written in May 2003 I think this article has a few points that have stood the test of time and are pertinent today.

People, Ideas & Objects unquestionably are a technology company. However we are focused on bringing business solutions to market. Solutions like using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer. We are not selling technology for technology sake. We are selling innovative business solutions. And maybe most importantly, we are solution providers, not change agents. We feel there is a big difference and it appears McKinsey feels the same.

Compounding the challenge is the tendency to view technology, first, as a panacea and, then, after the hype proves unrealistic, as anathema. The experience of the leaders shows that new technology alone won’t boost productivity. Productivity gains come from managerial innovation: fundamental changes in the way companies deliver products or services. Companies generate innovations, in fat years or lean, by deploying new technology along with improved processes and capabilities.

This next quote from McKinsey brings up an important consideration. That the investment in IT in itself will not provide the solution to the problem. There are other investments in the underlying business that need to be considered in order to align the business with the IT investments. What we feel we are doing with the developments at People, Ideas & Objects are aligning the IT developments with the oil and gas business. The Joint Operating Committee is systemic throughout the global oil and gas industry. It is the legal, financial, operational decision making, cultural, communication, innovation and strategic framework of the oil and gas industry. We are identifying, supporting and aligning these frameworks with the compliance and governance frameworks of the hierarchy to achieve a speed, innovation and accountability for the innovative oil and gas producer. We are moving the systems towards the way the industry operates. Not attempting to move the industry towards some theoretical Information Technological model.

For companies competing on the basis of IT-enabled advances, knowing when to jump onto the innovation racetrack can be as important as how. Timing and sequencing, at their simplest, ensure that all prerequisite investments are in place before new IT initiatives are launched. Particularly in the retail sector, our research highlighted the importance of multiple tiers of investment, each laying the foundation for the next. In general merchandising, for example, before companies can implement sophisticated planning applications, a certain level of competence in warehouse- and transport-management systems is needed to get goods to customers.

So yes we should make these investments in preparation for the implementation of People, Ideas & Objects systems. But those should be to ensure that the community first of all captures the correct ways and means of industry operations in the Preliminary Specification. And that we continue to ensure that the industries needs are met by the technology, not the technologies needs are met by the industry.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

McKinsey on Productivity

Its the weekend and we have two McKinsey articles to fill in the time with some topical discussion. This first article is on productivity and how we need to accelerate, through innovation, our productivity to ensure job growth continues.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

The Preliminary Specification Part XVI (PA Part II)

One of the difficulties in discussing the Partnership Accounting module in the manner that I am is that the discussion is limited to the understanding of one person. Although I have a good understanding of how oil and gas operates it is limited to one persons view. The purpose in these developments is to have the community develop the Preliminary Specification and therefore have the full perspective of all aspects of how the industry operates. This limitation, although obvious in the other modules, is most evident in the Partnership Accounting module.

When we talk about the scope of operations that would be managed under the Partnership Accounting module I would say that it includes just everything. Simply the cut-off would be the inlet or outlet to any refinery. Therefore the total scope of any upstream oil and gas operation. Let me be more specific about that from the point of view of geography and type of operation managed by the People, Ideas & Objects application.

If we look at the North American oil and gas infrastructure we see a variety of oil and gas installations designed to serve both producers and consumers of oil and gas. Wells, gathering systems, gas plants, pipelines, storage facilities etc. At each point along these systems there may be additional deliveries of product, or sales of product or products inventoried. What seems to be an obvious and simple business becomes incredibly complex when it realized that each asset may be owned by a Joint Operating Committee itself and hold product on behalf of owners of other Joint Operating Committee’s. This summary glosses over the incredible complexity of this business when the volume of transactions that occur in these businesses make it an important part of the oil and gas operation.

Critical to controlling the business is the material balance report that is part of the Preliminary Specification. It is the central document that so much of the subsequent activity is based upon. If someone is to be charged for storage of butane for example, or if someone is to be charged a marketing fee for delivery of product to a customer. Or simply if a sale of a raw gas stream is deemed to have occurred at the well head. The material balance report captures these transactions and initiates the flow of documents that need to be generated. It is these documents that also need to be captured and generated in the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary and Other Specifications. To name them all would require some understanding and consensus amongst the community which would include the producers.

To state as simply as this that the scope of the Partnership Accounting module captures all of these activities for all of these facilities is its purpose. Each material balance report must balance. And each reports inputs and outputs balance to other material balance reports. (This will be an important consideration in the upcoming Accounting Voucher.) Many of these reports are from one company to another.

As we explore the Partnership Accounting module further we see the reasons why we are taking such a broad scope of operations into considerations. It would be an understatement to state that this area has been poorly served by IT. To approach it from a global perspective that includes production operations, accounting and the other areas that depend on this information would be “ideal”, however, the complexity of the business has always been in the way. The engineering of software has never been available to approach the type of problem that this area presents. I think it exists now. And I think that the Partnership Accounting and Accounting Voucher modules of People, Ideas & Objects provides the vision of how this engineering solution solves this problem.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

The Preliminary Specification Part XV (PA Part I)

With our last post on the Financial Marketplace module we temporarily leave our review of the three marketplace modules and move on to the Partnership Accounting module. The Partnership Accounting module is the a pure “accounting” module from the traditional sense, however, I think there are many attributes and concepts of this module that make it unique and of interest to everyone in the industry.

So for the accountant in all of us, why don’t we start off with the statutory list of required functionality and output. And then tomorrow get into some of the new concepts and differences that are as a result of using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer. So here we go, great stuff!

• General Ledger
• Account Payable and Receivable Detail
• Payments
• Revenues and Royalties (Gross & Net)
• Capital and Operating (Gross & Net)
• Statement of Operations
• Statement of Expenditures 
• Gas Cost Allowance (Unique to each participant in a JOC)
• Trial Balance
• Balance Sheet
• Income Statement
• Statement of changes in financial position.
• Field data capture.
• Material balance c/w inventory control. 
• Nomination and contract fulfillment.
• And many, many more

This is standard fare for any software provider in oil and gas. As we will see in subsequent posts the difference in the People, Ideas & Objects software application is substantial in that the Joint Operating Committee is treated as the partnership that it is. It also recognizes that the costs of the property for each of the producers within a Joint Operating Committee is unique, as are the strategies that are employed.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

The Preliminary Specification Part XIV (FM Part IV)

This will be our last post on the Financial Marketplace module in terms of our Preliminary Specification output discussion. In this post we will discuss some of the generic reporting requirements of the module. These interfaces are of a financial nature and reflect the types of people (accounting and finance) that will be working within the module. This post looks at the reporting from both the Joint Operating Committee and the producer perspectives.

Our discussion of the costs of administering high levels of banking due to using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative producer is an important consideration in this discussion. We have two choices to deal with these high administrative costs. We can hire a lot of people, or alternatively we can highly engineer the software that the industry will use to deal with the administrative burden. A highly engineered software solution, backed up with a software development capability such as is proposed by People, Ideas & Objects I think would earn the general consensus.

Understanding the marketplace metaphor and the discussion regarding bankers and investors in previous posts, the module would include, but in no way would be limited to, the following.

Joint Operating Committee perspective.

• Banking deposit and payment processing.
• Account reconciliation and analysis.
• Short term asset reconciliation and management.
• Dynamic working capital determinations.
• Short term liabilities accounts and management.
• Long term liabilities accounts and management.

From the producer perspective.

• Banking deposit and payment processing.
• Account reconciliation and analysis.
• Short term asset reconciliation and management.
• Dynamic working capital determinations and allocations.
• Short term liabilities accounts and management.
• Long term liabilities accounts and management.
• Shareholder equity accounts and management.
• Consolidated JOC working capital.
• Uncommitted consolidated JOC working capital.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

The Preliminary Specification Part XIII (FM Part III)

In our two posts regarding the Financial Marketplace module we have discussed both the relationship with bankers and investors. In the first post we noted that the module provided the choice to either maintain the banking relationship between each partner in the Joint Operating Committee. Or alternatively each Joint Operating Committee might be represented by one bank for all partners. In our second post we noted that the interfaces and tools that could be available to establish a marketing relationship between the producer and the investment community. Where there were possibilities to have the property securitized and other means in which “ownership” might be different then what exists today.

Today I want to briefly discuss the logistical implications of having these types of situations operational in an oil and gas firm. To suggest that this would make the financial aspects of a producer firm simpler would be contrary to the reality of a system that is providing these types of opportunities. Simply the legal and financial reporting and logistical requirements would be an order of magnitude more voluminous. It is fair to assume that the producer firm would need to maintain a banking relationship with most of the banks that had a presence in the oil and gas business. That relationship would include loans, accounts and all of their services. Managing for each loans financial requirement would become unbearable. Causing all kinds of administrative and management burdens that would otherwise not be incurred in today's systems.

Crap. All of these are done today, albeit on a smaller scale, in most companies. Adding a multiple of volume through automated systems such as what is being discussed in the Draft and Preliminary Specification makes the prior discussion a mute point. What is not realized is that the Joint Operating Committee is the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer. By enabling the financial constraints of the property to be just the financial constraints of the property and only the financial constraints of the property. The participants in the Joint Operating Committee are free to deal with those that are financially motivated in dealing with the issues of that Joint Operating Committee. There are no more of “them”, who are never in attendance at meetings anyway. When it comes time to make a decision, a decision can be made.

Its not that the decisions are made in the Financial Marketplace module. What this module is doing is aligning the financial interests of the Joint Operating Committee so that the decision rights are in alignment with the operational decision making authority. The financial, legal and operational decision making authority resides in the Joint Operating Committee and the alignment of these interests makes the ability to decide the best course of action possible. Currently, the muddling of these frameworks by general assignments to banks by each producer, and some nameless and faceless investor, limit the flexibility of the decision making authority of the engineers and earth scientists who are responsible for the performance of the property. By focusing the ownership and operating resources on the assets of the Joint Operating Committee, the consensus can be achieved and decisions can be made.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

The Preliminary Specification Part XII (FM Part II)

It is the Financial Marketplace module in which I really throw the cat amongst the pigeons when I talk about the redundancy of the bureaucracy. Yet when I reflect on the past three years, I see the investment marketplace holds the oil and gas producers management in not much better esteem. There is a general dissatisfaction within the oil and gas investor community. How much of this dissatisfaction is to do with the overall financial market meltdown, and how much is to do with a general dissatisfaction with the oil and gas industry itself is unknown.

The fact of the matter is that with the run up in the prices there has been an even greater run up in the costs of production and operations. Management have provided no upside from the price increases. A management that have provided no upside on 400% price increases will not provide any upside on any further price increases. And it is quite probable that significant financial losses will arise as a result of any price declines. So there is much to be concerned about when it comes to the current state of affairs in the manner in which the oil and gas industry is managed.

I’m glad that I am on record for being critical of management, and that I am the one that management have been kicking with such vigor. It’s one thing to be right, another for management to have been so wrong for so long. Nonetheless, the industry is going through a fundamental change. One in which the earth science and engineering resources needed to discover and produce the base commodities are under increasing demands. We therefore need to organize ourselves for this new challenge.

The Financial Marketplace module provides a window for the producer to deal with the bankers within the Joint Operating Committee. This is as we discussed in last Friday’s post. Whether a producer chooses to have each participant maintain their own bank representative. Or, each Joint Operating Committee has one banker for all the producers represented in the Joint Operating Committee is a choice provided by the Financial Marketplace module.

Today’s post shows the critical role of the investor in the long term health of the oil and gas industry. I think in order to have them participate in the industry, again, will require they are provided with new tools and opportunities to invest in oil and gas. In the Draft Specification it was suggested that possibly the working interest share might be a securitized investment. I think on the basis of the past three years history, that it should be considered that the investment community might have some enhanced tools and interfaces to the producer through the Financial Marketplace module of the People, Ideas & Objects software application. After all its a marketplace.

The interfaces and tools that I am thinking are not of the statutory type that are required by various regulatory agencies. These are provided through the Compliance & Governance module of the People, Ideas & Objects application. The type of interfaces that I am thinking that may be used in the Financial Marketplace module would be more of the marketing style. Where the producer is out selling their investment to the “financial marketplace” in order to secure future investments. Ways to initiate dialog and for information and discussion to start the relationship between the investor and the producer.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.

McKinsey, The Perils of Bad Strategy

This McKinsey paper is a must read. Written by Professor Richard Rumelt it provides a critical review of strategy. A review of which we can evaluate our strategy of using the Joint Operating Committee as the key organizational construct of the innovative oil and gas producer. In this paper entitled “The Perils of Bad Strategy” Professor Rumelt states:

A strategy is a way through a difficulty, an approach to overcoming an obstacle, a response to a challenge. If the challenge is not defined, it is difficult or impossible to assess the quality of the strategy. And, if you cannot assess that, you cannot reject a bad strategy or improve a good one.

The challenge that I foresee the oil and gas industry experiencing is the heavy demand for the commodity. In most situations this would be considered a positive thing with the positive effect on prices and the resulting windfall profits that would naturally arise. However, a second sober look at the implications of the high demand shows the activity levels will need to increase. Next, the fact that each unit of energy requires an ever increasing level of earth science and engineering effort for each unit of production. These two facts demand more of a critical human resource that is difficult to increase to meet these demands. More earth scientists and engineers are not readily available to satisfy these new demands. Therefore we need to deploy the resources we do have more strategically.

In the Resource Marketplace module we have talked about a revised boundary between the market and the producers. Where the producers are focused on their asset base, consisting of their leases and physical assets, and their science and engineering capabilities which they apply to their asset base. The rest of what they need has to come from the marketplace. There are companies like Encana Corporation that feel they can do it all. Encana has dozens of drilling rigs that they own and operate, I assume because the drilling firms are unable to drill Encana’s wells to Encana’s standards. Soon they’ll be opening a drill bit division. This is the point that Professor Rumelt is making in this next quote.

Good strategy, in contrast, works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favourable outcomes. It also builds a bridge between the critical challenge at the heart of the strategy and action—between desire and immediate objectives that lie within grasp. Thus, the objectives that a good strategy sets stand a good chance of being accomplished, given existing resources and competencies.

Focusing on finding and producing the oil and gas is the key value add for an oil and gas producer. Everything else is secondary and should be provided to the producer through the market mechanism. People, Ideas & Objects also provide the opportunity to pool the earth science and engineering resources represented in the Joint Operating Committee’s participants to further ease the demand on these resources. This is done through what we call the Military Command & Control Metaphor. Building the earth science and engineering capabilities necessary within each producer firm creates unnecessary competition for these resources. Pooling increases the supply / availability of these resources to the producers, therefore eliminating waste, excessive demand and redundancies.

Despite the roar of voices equating strategy with ambition, leadership, vision, or planning, strategy is none of these. Rather, it is coherent action backed by an argument. And the core of the strategist’s work is always the same: discover the crucial factors in a situation and design a way to coordinate and focus actions to deal with them.

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.

Please note what Google+ provides us is the opportunity to prove that People, Ideas & Objects are committed to developing this community. That this is user developed software, not change that is driven from the top down. Join me on the People, Ideas & Objects Google+ Circle and begin building the community for the development of the Preliminary Specification. Email me here if you need an invite.