Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry

3.1.1 Plan Single Point of Accountability (SPA)
This will be done by the project manager with the planning team. First, 
define the team members that will perform the required activities and be 
sure they have sufficient information on their potential and their relation 
to the size of the project. If you want to use another experienced planner 
from another project contracted to work with you, do so at the beginning 
of the project. 
You should also know through the collection of information whether 
the working group has worked in similar projects because projects have 
almost the same activities. For example, if you are working on an oil and 
gas project and the working group has worked on the same type of project 
before, that experience is different than housing projects, hotels, road proj-
ects, or administration buildings.
Each type of project has its own characteristics. Therefore, the working 
group needs to have worked in a project that is similar to your project.
The planner must be efficient in planning, must have the ability to plan the 
project well, and must have good experience in the same type of project. 
At the beginning of the work, it is very important to hold a meeting 
between the planning team, the official sponsor of the project or the direc-
tor of the project, and the owner and his or her representative. The goal of 
this meeting is to clarify the main objectives of the project, identify priori-
ties in the implementation of the driving force, which is time or cost, and 
determine what is desired from the project as a whole.

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Pitfalls in Time Schedule Planning 85
3.1.2 Starting the Plan
Before starting the project plan, we should go through the basic definitions 
that are usually used during plan implementation. These definitions are as 
follows:
• Task – a small amount of work that will be performed by one 
member
• Activity – consists of a set of tasks and is performed by dif-
ferent individuals
• Concurrent activities – activities that are performed in parallel
• Series activities – activities that are executed one after the 
other, as the second activity cannot start until the first activ-
ity is finished
Usually, there is a conflict between the task and activity and it can be 
clear if you have to prepare a technical report. An activity consists of tasks, 
such as collecting required information, performing a data analysis, pre-
paring photos and figures, preparing the first revision of a report, or print-
ing a report.
There are many ways to start planning and you have to choose among 
them. A good way to begin is by identifying the key stages of the project. 
The main key stages of the project can be identified by holding a meeting 
with the experienced people on the project team from different disciplines, 
stakeholders, and sponsors. In this meeting, use a brainstorm technique 
among the attendees.
Every group should make suggestions on paper. Then, the papers should 
be collected and all the ideas and contributions, regardless of being logical 
or illogical, should be shared among everyone in the meeting. It is impor-
tant to follow the following rules during the meeting:
• Be concerned about quantity and not quality, even if it 
turned out that some of the tasks and activities have been 
replicated.
• Stop any suspicion of an individual to avoid any idea of the 
critical observations bothering the participants.
The next step is very important, as it will now have a wide range of tasks. 
The next step of the action team is to filter such activities and this is done 
by removing some of the tasks that are repeated or duplicated. Compile the 
tasks, including the interdependence of both the straight or parallel. The 

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86 
Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry
small number of tasks and activities reduced often ranges from 30 to 60, 
according to the size of the activity of the project. Then, compile the activi-
ties at key stages of the project. 
By using this method, you will reach high precision in the planning, up 
to about 90 percent. This is considered the beginning step in the planning 
of the project as a whole.
Now, you have the main stages of the project and all the key stages were 
agreed on by the members of the project. Now you should order them in a 
logical order, but you should avoid the following:
• Defining time or dates.
• The allocation of employment to those stages. 
All of the above will cause problems, as many attendees will push you to 
define dates. Please take care to not fall in this hole.
To avoid mistakes in planning the Project Logic Control, the key stages 
must be defined on the main wall of the office. Figures 3.1a and 3.1b show 
examples of the main stages of the project.
The advantages of the above method are that everyone has an opinion 
on the project, making everyone keen to the success of the project, and a 
person’s idea or opinion reflects on the project. Therefore, a person will do 
his or her best to offer opinions that will match with the project goal.
It is noted from Figures 3.1a and 3.1b that the design phase has been 
divided into two stages, the first stage being (a) and the second being (b), 
in order to allow the sending of purchase orders from the start before the 
end of the first phase of the design.
Now you have the information that can be used in the computer soft-
ware in order to prepare the time schedule for the agreed plan.
The basic rules that must be adhered to and strictly followed in the prep-
aration of a project schedule are as follows:
• The movement of activities should go from the left to the 
right.
• There is no measure of time.
• There is a place to start in the beginning of the greatest 
square in the north. Make sure there is an empty place in the 
page for each major stage in the project.
• Each phase is described by the act of writing in the form 
of present tense. (Do not try to set the stage for any period 
of time.)
• The pages are developed in accordance with the logical 
arrangement.

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Pitfalls in Time Schedule Planning 87
• There must be communication between the stages of a 
relationship.
• Identify 
responsibilities.
• Provide connectivity between the stages.
• Avoid the intersection of the stock as much as possible.
• Identify each key stage by professional codes.