Web technology has enabled organisations to make huge strides in knowledge management. A classic example is Shell, where global knowledge networks have saved millions in costs and transformed learning. Lucie Carrington
People Management, 27 Jun 2002
When Shell in Brazil needed help retrieving broken tools from a borehole, engineers turned to their international colleagues for help. Within 24 hours, ideas were flooding in from all over the world via a global knowledge network devoted to wells, and Shell Brasil was able to save the well and US$7 million to boot.
The wells network is one of 11 global-knowledge communities set up by Shell International Exploration and Production (SIEP) during the past four years. Between them they cover the core business in SIEP, plus support functions such as HR, IT, finance and procurement. They have also become a major learning tool within Shell.
“This is a very knowledge-intensive business because there are so many variables, but there are lots of commonalities too,” says Arjun van Unnik, a founding member of New Ways of Working, the department set up to develop and sponsor these communities.
“So six years ago we had the idea that if we encountered a problem in, for example, Nigeria, it could be that something similar had already happened in the North Sea and someone working in the North Sea had the solution. All we needed to do was put the person with the problem in contact with the person with the solution.”
Previously SIEP used a yellow pages-type directory of experts, but the information listed tended to be general, whereas problems that need solving are usually very specific.
“If someone in Nigeria went into the yellow pages, the chances were that the guy who had the knowledge hadn’t mentioned that in his entry,” van Unnik says.
He wanted to find a way of enabling people to broadcast their problems to a wider community. That’s when he hit on the idea of a web-based solution. Initially he and his colleagues looked at smaller communities – groups of people who knew each other. More than 100 were set up over two years covering the main business: getting the oil out of the ground. The problem was that people had to belong to and tap into several groups to reach the person with the expertise they needed.
So in 1998, SIEP set up “New Ways of Working” to bring people together into three global networks that dealt with the core business areas: sub-surface – everything happening below the surface of the reservoir; surface – everything happening above the reservoir; and wells – the things that link surface and sub-surface.
“We had to make it clear to people that small communities mean less traffic and the less traffic you have, the less chance there is of the network surviving,” Van Unnik explains. “There has to be some critical mass.”
Since introducing the core business communities, SIEP has extended its network portfolio to include support functions but has no plans for any more. Each new community begins with a seed group – about 25 people who are enthusiastic and have ideas to exchange. This group generates the initial traffic. Once that’s done, they invite the next layer of people who are interested to join. Gradually, existing users bring in more users. The important thing is that from the seed group upwards, the community is a global one.
Some communities are easier to build than others, according to van Unnik. The core business groups have 3,000 to 4,000 members each, while the HR community, set up a year ago, has only 700 (see below). This is partly because of the nature of the information that is being shared and the people who are sharing it. The engineers who work in the core business come from a culture of sharing information. It’s also hard factual stuff, van Unnik points out. You extract oil or you don’t.
Each community has a moderator, or co-ordinator, who is responsible for controlling content and traffic flow. Co-ordinators encourage people to contribute and ensure that questions are posed and answers proffered. So, if after a few days there are no responses to a particular question, it will be up to the co-ordinator to search out the experts in that field and ask them to give their views. Every few days all the new entries are automatically pulled together into an e-mail, which is distributed to all members as a sort of community newspaper.
Out in the operating companies, each network has a regional ambassador called a hub co-ordinator. “They are important in engaging people in their companies and building up the community locally,” van Unnik says.
Over the past couple of years it has become clear that these global networks are also excellent personal development tools. According to van Unnik, they are an amazing form of peer learning, which beats courses and books.
“This sort of learning from more experienced people is invaluable,” he adds.
As the larger, more developed communities have gathered more traffic, they have amassed a huge body of material. This is archived and remains at the fingertips of every single community member. As a result, people have started using the networks as libraries. Search tools mean they can find out if anyone has had a similar problem, look at what’s been suggested and, if they still don’t get a precise answer, put together a list of people who they can contact directly.
“In this way, these communities develop their own internal yellow pages,” van Unnik says.
However, a much more structured list of experts – or global consultants – is also being developed as part of the network. There are currently 250 of these consultants. All of them are experts in their field, have been proposed by their Shell company and had their status accredited by senior managers in SIEP.
Global consultants can’t sit back and wallow in their new-found glory. They have to be prepared to share their knowledge by making themselves available for up to 15 days a year to other Shell businesses. Of course, it’s not that simple; many Shell companies are jointly owned by other firms or governments.
“We have had to put in all kinds of financial and legal mechanisms so that, for example, someone from the UK can do some work for Shell in Malaysia,” van Unnik says.
The network is also geared up to acknowledge team expertise through the concept of centres of excellence. There are currently 13 centres such as Shell in Oman, which is the centre of excellence for seismic movement in the desert. As with the individual consultants, these teams have to be available to work for other Shell companies and be prepared to take an active part in the discussion forums.
“Teams have taken on a responsibility to ensure that their expertise will remain at a higher level. If they cannot carry that responsibility, they will lose their status,” van Unnik says.
Learning and sharing knowledge is a worthy aim in itself, but the real driving force behind the money being spent on these global networks is the bottom line. Van Unnik knows that Shell has already saved in excess of US$200 million (£134 million) from knowledge sharing. And this figure only takes into account the instances where the savings could be quantified.
“There are plenty of other cases where we cannot add precise value to the solution,” he says.
Money aside, there are some great stories out there too. As well as Shell Brasil’s success in clearing the borehole, there is the story of the manager in Shell Malaysia who saved himself a huge headache when he had problems shutting down a gas turbine. He used archived material on the surface global network for ideas and found that teams in Australia and the US had already experienced these problems and posted possible solutions on the network.
Then there is the example of the Shell sales company in Singapore that beat much bigger rivals to a contract, having used the global network to research not only Shell’s history with this client but their competitors too.
It all sounds so simple, but it is a new way of working for many employees and there are issues of internal competition that van Unnik and his colleagues have had to deal with. For example, in the past, Shell has benchmarked and rated individual companies against each other. Sharing knowledge suggests you are giving internal competitors a leg up, van Unnik says. This has been a problem, especially for support teams who have to bid for internal work.
“Initially some people were reluctant to share – partly because it took up their time but also because they felt that they had got themselves good jobs in Shell as a result of what they knew. But gradually people have realised that together we are stronger. What is more, the people who are sharing their information are becoming recognised as company experts.”
There is also a danger of becoming labelled the company klutz who doesn’t know simple things, and van Unnik admits people do criticise what they consider to be stupid questions. But there are ways of avoiding ridicule, he says. First, members can use the archive to find out what information is already available on the subject and may not need to ask a question at all. Second, there is probably a list of local experts who can advise on whether or not a question is too stupid to ask the rest of the community. Finally, the web site includes tips on how to ask questions.
“If people need information they should be able to get it from their colleagues,” van Unnik says. “It’s a basic business principle.”
Learning in the pipeline
The Shell Open University was originally set up in December 2000 as an online course catalogue, but it has developed into a tool to help Shell people manage their own personal development.
It now has 11,000 registered users and includes about 600 courses, some delivered online, some classroom-based, some delivered solely by Shell and some with its learning partners.
“People can nominate themselves for courses through the web site and download resources. They can book accommodation through the site and we will bill them through it too,” says Rachel Shaughnessy, who manages the site.
“Before we set up the open university, we used a paper system with paper learning guides and nominations faxed and e-mailed through. Employees who don’t have access to the Shell intranet can still do that, but anyone who does have access is expected to go through the open university site.”
In theory, the system allows anyone to nominate him or herself for anything, but in practice this does not happen.
“Operating units have what we call a commitment controller,” Shaughnessy says. “That’s a line or personnel manager who has to approve nominations. When we receive a nomination, an e-mail is automatically sent out to the commitment controller for their approval.”
Originally the site was developed for the use of SIEP only, but its range is now being extended to include a lot more IT courses, for example.
The initial software for the online university was supplied by Docent, but Shell has added a lot to it to enable people to make nominations, book accommodation and receive their bills via the site. These have taken about 18 months to develop and the software is not perfect yet – it is still a bit slow. So, for the moment, there are no plans to add on more features.
A word in your shell-like
The HR global network was established a year ago and now has more than 700 users spread all over the world. Currently the membership is for HR professionals and HR practitioners. This includes central HR staff, personnel managers in line roles and some line managers who have a fair amount of HR built into their jobs. It’s not confined to SIEP and includes some people from other Shell businesses.
“It works in the same way as the core business networks. The basic principle is that if you have a question, you can post it on the network where other people can view it and give you some answers,” says Amit Abdul-Razak, an HR information manager and the HR global network co-ordinator, based at Shell in The Hague.
“The trend is very positive and the number of active users is growing. But we have to be practical too. It’s about a change of mindset and a new way of working for many people. The technology isn’t the issue. It’s more about winning hearts, and that’s not an overnight process.”
As co-ordinator, Abdul-Razak’s role is to keep up the momentum and ensure that questions get answered, if necessary by referring them to the right person, as not everyone looks at the network every day. Along with hub co-ordinators in the different operating units, he is also working hard to raise HR people’s awareness of the network and how it operates.
Having got the network up and running, Abdul-Razak and his colleagues have two major challenges ahead. The biggest is probably to find a way of measuring the savings people are making by using the network.
“Quantifying HR benefits isn’t easy but we could look, for example, at the time people are saving by learning from others,” he says.
It’s all about achieving HR excellence, but Abdul-Razak admits that it could be some time before the HR network is as fully developed as the core business networks, with their global consultants and centres of excellence. “It’s a long-term goal but we have to be realistic,” he says.
A study of the HR networks by a team of academics sponsored by the CIPD found that HR professionals needed to build relationships using face-to-face contact before they could fully realise the “social capital” from such communities.
It also stressed that communities have to work on real business issues and that each HR process was at a different stage of evolution. One approach does not fit all of the processes.
The study is part of a major CIPD project called “Globalising HR”, which will be reported on in the next issue of People Management.
IT global networks
The most recent global network to come on-stream is for IT staff. This started about six months ago with a seed group of 10 enthusiasts and now has 1,200 people registered all over the world.
“We began by setting up the physical infrastructure,” says IT network co-ordinator Emeka Ojinnaka, based at Shell in The Hague. Most of this could be lifted from the existing global networks, but needed customising for the IT community.
“We wanted it to have its own logo, look and feel,” Ojinnaka says. “Having done that, we sought out a global group willing to come together to kick off the knowledge sharing. We wanted to engage not just IT people but everyone interested in IT within Shell. The idea is that all IT-related issues can be discussed in the open.”
The result was paper notices, e-mails and articles on the web about the new forum and what it had to offer. “We used our personal contacts too, such as people we had worked with in the past. “It took time and effort but once users started to reap the benefits, others wanted to take part. It is also an environment where people naturally share knowledge and best practice.”
Ojinnaka uses the network to find solutions to his own work problems. For example, a few weeks ago he was conducting a web-based survey within Shell. It would have been hard to collate and analyse the information as he had simply sent out a template for people to fill in and send back, so he sought other suggestions. “Within 24 hours I had received 13 different ideas from all over the world. Now all I have to do is choose which of them to go with.”
Ojinnaka has started to research the savings users are making as a result of the network. He reckons Shell has already saved US$3 million – and that’s just from the 10 to 15 per cent of users who have responded to his research.
Further information
The HR Software Show 2002 runs from 26-27 June at Hall 1, Barbican Centre, London. For further information, visit www.cipd.co.uk/hrss or call 020 8263 3434
The results of the research project, “Globalising HR”, will be published by the CIPD as an executive briefing in September, (price £12.50 CIPD members; £25 non-members). Contact Fran Wilson, CIPD manager, international, on 020 8263 3273
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