A large deep water West of Shetland brownfield redevelopment project with a projected spend of several billion dollars was approaching the end of the first year of activity. The operator and main contractor agreed to hold a ‘lessons learned’ session for the Subsea, Umbilicals, Risers and Flowlines (SURF) elements of the scope. This was to be attended by the client, the main contractor and several sub-contractors.
Taking place over three days in Aberdeen and attended by 80 people the workshop discussion was wide ranging, the lessons identified were extensive in both number and scale and remedial actions were agreed and assigned at the session. Subsequently the output was presented to the client partners with positive feedback; the lessons learnt actions were pursued and closed out in the agreed order and Stash was contracted to deliver other facilitated workshops for the project. Following the success of the 2013 session we were invited to plan and deliver the project lessons learned workshop for 2014 and 2015.
In 2016 as the project neared first oil it was agreed that a final Lessons Learnt review session be undertaken, again facilitated by Stash. Subsequently the project has completed a summary document entitled ‘End of Project SURF Lessons Learned’. This is an example of successful deployment of a lessons learned process early enough in a project to allow any emerging improvement ideas to be actioned; much more productive than running such a session at the end of a project when the team is moving on and the lessons cannot actually be addressed.