The most important thing ...

Back when I was a teenager we were tought various subjects at secondary school, one of them being ‘Craft & Design’. The premise behind our Craft and Design course was to learn how to design and manufacture things, take a problem or an idea and turn it into a solution, learning the methods of production along the way.

During this process we learned a great many sayings/proverbs, from our teachers, some of which I still remember to this day, such as:

We also learned the concept of PRISM, an acronym meaning;

This simple abbreviation kept all us young and enthusiastic pupils in line, it gave us an order in which to assess what we were doing, and it is still something I use to this day.

The idea of teaching students this process was to ensure that we were ready to move on to the next step in the process before we moved onto it, which in effect meant we had considered various aspects of the problem and how to address it. Ultimately it meant, that as a class of individuals, we all learned how to apply our own individual solutions to a given problem.  I recall making wooden spatulas/spoons, with each spatula/spoon in the class being unique, yet they all fulfilled the requirements derived from the problem. And they all worked first time!

By analyzing this simple problem, and carefully documenting the issues around it, we were able to assess various solutions to the provided problem. We later learned that the process of identifying the problem correctly was equally significant, as any issues at this stage flowed down through the entire process.

Why am I reminiscing on my teenage education, and waffling on about a wooden spatula? Over the past years I have seen first hand that Voltaire was correct when he said:

“Common sense is not so common.”

I would offer a few words of advice to remind people involved in planning offshore projects, whether they be new to the industry, or an old hand, of a few key items:-

• The projects a contractor has completed, demonstrate what they already know, whereas future projects will determine what they can learn. Providing the right tool for the job is sometimes not enough, new challenges require careful thought.

• Assuming all things which serve a similar role are effectively the same and ignoring the installation advice of a supplier, simply because you may choose to ‘do it the way we always have’ is a dangerous path to follow. If/when it goes wrong this shows a lack of understanding of fundamental design philosophy, not a failure of a product, but all too often a poor workman will blame his tools, or the poor guy in procurement who ordered the tool/material. A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing, if something effectively does the same job it does not make it interchangeable nor the same thing, in my teenage analogy all our spatulas/spoons were different but all had the same overall purpose, each one had followed a similar but unique design process, a spoon and a spatula can both stir soup, but have you ever tried to flip a fried egg with a spoon?  Nor have I, but I dare say the process would be significantly different to that of a spatula (and more messy!).
• If a job is worth doing its worth doing well, its worth taking pride in your work to ensure you get it right first time. Getting things right first time, saves a whole heap of heartache, not to mention money and reputation. As my teacher used to say “measure twice, cut once”, this I have updated for my own purposes to include the requirement to measure from both ends, calculate from a single point and check from the other. Having doubts or questions about what you’re doing is not a sign of weakness, as George Illes said ”doubt is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it”.Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for simplification and repeatability, but when involved in design or derivation of methodologies you should understand the process and be willing to doubt the suitability/results until you prove them right.
• Of late projects need to be managed, with procedures written for the lowest common denominator, or even for individuals outwith the offshore industry. Some people will do exactly what is written without question or thought, while others will simply ignore it believing they know best. With this wide spread of reaction to clearly defined, and hopefully well considered, documentation it becomes clear that some past experience would be beneficial when attempting to ‘foolproof’ a design or procedure, or as Douglas Adams put it  

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”

• The ‘fourth law’ of thermodynamics states ' If anything can go wrong, it will’, and if you start from a perspective of questioning the current method/design, you may prove it is the best, or in some cases the least bad, solution or you may be able to improve on it, either way you will have passed it through a process of evaluation, and learned something about it in that process.
• All too often statements/methods/calculations are just cut’n’pasted from the last time things were done, which may miss the point in respect to local/project differences and changes in supplied materials. As Donald Coduto said,

“The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.”

So carefully identify what the most important thing actually is, and keep it just that.

When planning/managing new projects as they arise, with the wealth of new engineers, and engineers from different sectors out there, don’t assume they have had the same training as you, share your own knowledge and experience with them, encourage them to question processes/designs as in the end it will be of benefit to you all.