Post-investment review of technological projects in oil and gas: Gazprom Neft Upstream approach

Abstract

In the world of continuous change and volatility, benefits and results of investments made by companies into research and development (R&D) projects have to be transparent for management of a company in order to make timely and appropriate investment decisions. The paper discusses prospects of post-implementation review of R&D projects, process complications the company faced and its interaction with key related processes of the technology strategy: diffusion among affiliated companies, education and commercialization. Any technology project strives to deliver both technological and economic benefits to a company. While technological success is usually the focus of a project manager, the economical results are overseen by the management of a company and used as a source for action. An overview of best industrial practices is given, later compared to the approach employed by the upstream division of Gazprom Neft company. The latter presents general process and key principles, including process initiation triggers, stages and KPIs used for the monitoring. The importance of technology diffusion is discussed, specifically the impact of technology readiness level on the success of a project is considered as well as necessity to develop “fail fast” culture in the company in order to have higher success ratio. Interconnection between the diffusion of a technology and the amount of intellectual property created by the technology is studied. The need for alignment to the company’s strategies by the project teams is revealed as well as continuous education methods are presented. The conclusion contains results and ways for improvement of the postimplementation review process in the company.