MIND MAPPING APPLIED TO RISING THE BAR IN MAN OPS

Challenge

At the company I work for, we are transforming. Following a change of board and a pandemic,  our strategy has shifted towards an energizing and hopeful vision based on net zero emissions  in production process and products. However, maintaining operational rigor, calm and not being  carried away by uncertainty and unease can be a challenge.

The pandemic has deprived us of our escapes, of our social relationships, and the number of  supervisors in the plant has also decreased. The transformation of the company implies a  reduction in personnel and a reconfiguration of hierarchy and ways of working. Simultaneously,  the number of civil and construction works in the refinery increases to adapt to a new scenario  of more sustainable production.

More jobs in the plant, fewer supervisors, and a climate of uncertainty = more risk of unwanted  events.

Fact: The number of potential incidents at other refineries has increased. Our internal  verifications show an upward trend in the number of "minor errors".

Challenge: to rise commitment and proactivity standards withing the first line workforce. As a  result, fewer incidents are expected.

Questions: What can we do to increase the level of care? How can we prevent the number of  incidents from increasing in our refinery, and with it the risk of suffering an accident? What is in  our power to provide peace of mind in an uncertain time to mitigate the human factor in errors?

Selection

This is not an easy problem to solve since it involves many soft skills the engineers and operators  who work in the plant are not very used to. The project was assigned to a colleague and me, but  we believe that it is worth expanding the spectrum of opinion, at least, to the entire XLT of  Operations to broaden perspectives and fully understand the problem and the underlying causes

I think the problem is abstract enough to use a tool that helps us define some basic criteria to  move to the next stage. That is why I have chosen mind-mapping. Mind-mapping is a technique  typically used to explore data and find patterns and perspectives that lead to insights and more  creative solutions.

I´m sure it would provide a good basis for us to understand underlying issues, putting ourselves  in the shoes of operators’ collective and to move from "what is" to "what if".

Application

Due to the pandemic, we are unable to meet face-to-face in a room to see all the data first-hand.  I therefore organized a virtual session and previously sent the following documentation:

- Analysis of recent high potential incidents of other refineries of the group

- Analysis of internal incidents

- KPIs for compliance with our operational excellence parameters

- Results of the last employee satisfaction survey (shifts)

- Analysis of the results of the survey / interviews carried out by the WANT team of the UJI  (Positive Organizational Psychology) based on their Health and Resilient Organizations standards

As I said, I summoned the entire XLT after telling them that we needed their collaboration to  promote a change in mindset; we are 14 people. I started the meeting by sharing screen and  sequentially showed all the documents that I mentioned above and that I sent as pre-read or  significant data for the meeting. I wanted to spend time displaying all the data in case someone  hadn't been able to see it in full.

Next, we shared a panel of the Whiteboard application and I asked each one of them to put, in  different notes and individually, the learnings they had obtained from the visualization of the  information provided, without previously commenting on it with anyone. Then we gave  ourselves 10 minutes to read all the notes and think about how they could be clustered. It took  us about 40 minutes to perform this step, which was somewhat chaotic in Whiteboard because  there were many people without being able to see each other’s expression when sharing a  screen. Maybe it would have been better to set shifts.

Finally, we were able to summarize in 1 or 2 sentences the fundamental ideas of each cluster  and we took a break before proceeding to interconnect them. The part of interconnection and  specification of the criteria of the process took us around 1.5 hours, where I acted as a coach  asking questions like: and what does that translate into? Why do we think that happens? What  does this affect to? ...

Insight

The fundamental insights of our process were that we had a very pyramidal structure that left  little room for the operators to take the initiative. We must delegate part of the control to create  a structure of acquisition of individual leadership, responsibility, and proactivity. This is also  related to the factors that fared worst in employee satisfaction surveys. However, to give up  control, we must work on tools so that they can assume it.

-  The first is to create competence (improving training processes, training exercises,  participation in creating procedures ...)

-  The second is clarity in our direction (set the main goal for the semester / year and put  it in writing in the control room, repeat the message, quarterly review of progress  towards our objective, etc.)

Mind-mapping has seemed like an excellent technique to land soft and abstract targets in  tangible actions.

Approach

I would use the same tool next time, however, I will take care of reserving the auditorium  room (with capacity for many people) to be able to do the exercise in person safely with the  sanitary measures that apply, since the Whiteboard alternative reduces fluidity and hinders  the dynamics.

