June 2016
Oilfield Technology
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63
Is this not what everyone does?Well, no, not really. It can be argued
that truly tailored training products are not the norm, principally because
of the additional care, attention and effort involved. Non-tailoring is
the norm. An extreme example of non-tailoringwas recently described
concerning a training organisationwho designed a course based around
theNorth Sea environment and exported it wholesale to theMiddle East.
The fact that the case studymaterial embedded in the coursewas based
on offshore projects did not seemto faze the course deliverers – driven by
a belief in consistency (and awish for highly profitable volume delivery)
the lack of relevance of offshore technology for desert countrieswas neatly
overlooked.
The simple tailored alternative to the above is to drop the
marine aspects. Themore subtle but necessary effort is the complete
deconstruction of the course to pick out the generic aspects relevant to the
Middle East client group, add in the locally specific content whichwould
not have been in theNorth Sea version of the course and rebuild the event
around the interests of the newgroup. This all requires effort, and goes far
beyond simply ‘cutting out the bits about theNorth Sea’ and changing the
date and location on the first PowerPoint slide (a dangerous business in
itself, and scope formuch embarrassment if done hastily and carelessly).
AGR believes that effort is necessary to transfer the skills and
knowledge of experts in areas like theNorth Sea to a new region. What to
dowhen the business dries up at home? Export, but with effort; tailor, and
tailormindfully.
Acase inpoint
A current bid for in-country skills development in an emerging region offers
a case in point. The principal commodity providers are in the region, and
providing a range of standard but useful off-the-shelf training products
in nearby countries. This provision, however, is not wholly in linewith
thewishes of theOil andGasMinistry in the country in question. After
discussionswith the relevant seniors in theMinistry it emerged their prime
concernwas the loss of talent out of the country, partly associatedwith
out-of-country training itself, which is provided on an individual basis
(generally the simplest andmost profitableway of delivering commodity
products). Talented individualswere given the opportunity to travel
for training, whichwas used as an opportunity to pick up generic skills,
network and apply their augmented CVs and their new learnt skills
generically, i.e. not at home. An element of this is inevitable, and not
necessarily a bad thing, but fromtheMinistry’s perspectivewas not the
intended use of finite training funds.
The request fromtheMinistrywas therefore to provide in-country
training. This request wasmet by offering a tailored in-country programme
– training teams together, using in-country data and adjusting content to
fit the specific issues in that region. Retaining talent also requires a career
path and attractive remuneration – out of scope for a training provider
(and stretching the definition of ‘tailoring’ a little too far) - but this can be
gainfully supported by a tailored development programme and thiswas
something that AGR could helpwith directly.
Providing such a programme on a one-off basis is highly unappealing
to a commodity training provider – the time, effort and overall investment
of resources are disproportionate compared to the profitability of running
a high-volume, repeating, un-tailored programme froma centralised
training centre.
However, for a company that is structured around the delivery of
tailored training, not anchored to a physically fixed training centre, the
opportunity is a good fit. The time and effort involved in deconstructing
existingmaterial, re-writing to fit a newdata set and researching the
historical needs of a region such that newcontent can be generated is
intellectually stimulating. It is also highly rewarding to see thematerial
‘land’ when delivered in the new location to a newgroup of peoplewho
are keen to learn as teams alongside their colleagues. Not as profitable as
high volume provision perhaps, but good business nevertheless.
In thisway, the ethos and skills developed by a group of tutors
founded in Aberdeen are readily exportable to a newarea. The key is
not any individual genius (there are plenty of talented tutorsworking on
commodity provision in training centres); the exportable product is the
approach – the tailoring itself.
LifeoutsidetheNorthSea
The tailoring ethos is applicable generally. It is the company’s belief
that exporting skills and experience fromanywhere requires this type
of approach. The trend seems to be it is easier to simply try to export
standard products and activities, and see if that works.
The question for every professional in their respective businesses is
therefore to open up the anatomy of skills and products – literally take
themapart and consider what is special or useful about each piece.
Some things AGR has done and learnt were really for local use only – the
North Sea in this region’s case. Other things are of global benefit and
therein lies the value. Rather than simply package up the same products
and offer themoptimistically to ‘interested others’ elsewhere, it is
necessary to critically think through and isolate the componentswhich
carry value internationally.
The resultmay be surprising. The valuemay lie in just part of an
existing product but equallymay not be a product at all. The valuemay
simply be the thought processes of the peoplewho had the flair to the
build the product in the first place.
For sure, the surviving useful products are likely to be different, and
‘different’ can still be based in Aberdeen (or anywhere).
Figure 1.
MarkBentley ona field trip inPatagonia.
Figure 2.
TRACS Training tutor andglobal advisor in early field
development, RichardOxlade, in Jakarta.
