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What Is Involved in Effective Shutdown Organization?

It involves

• Identifying all key roles and, in particular, defining their responsi- bilities (i�e�, not just your own element)

• Defining crystal-clear terms of reference and accountabilities for all key roles and bodies, for example, steering committee, execution team, etc�

• Defining “ways of working” for your team, describing how you will work with key partners, suppliers, and the customer(s)

Organization can also involve areas such as • Effective mobilization

• Developing team charters

• Defining a governance structure that covers key responsibilities, accountabilities, authorities, and decision making

• Developing all key controls, specific measures of performance, and metrics that will be used by the entire team

Essentials of a Turnaround Team

The turnaround team comprises the following: • Turnaround steering committee (TASC) • Turnaround working committee (TAWC) • Turnaround coordinator

• Team leader • Planning team • Quality team

• Operations team • Execution team • Safety team

Building a turnaround team: Turnaround organization is a matrix organization that gets personnel from other departments apart from regular staff on a tem- porary basis in order to function� These personnel have different functional and administrative reporting� Hence, supervisors have lesser control over them� The senior people from different functions will decide their team from their func- tion based on the quantum of work, turnaround duration, and number of shifts�

Turnaround steering committee: The turnaround steering committee is chaired by the head of the plant, and members comprise the general managers (GMs) of operations, technical, and shutdowns, deputy general managers (DGMs) of all departments, and the head of maintenance planning becomes the sec- retary of the committee�

Turnaround Steering Committee

The members of this team typically consist of the facility’s senior manage- ment� This group provides direction and guidance to the core team to ensure that the turnaround meets the business’ needs� A more important function of this committee, however, is to ensure that the turnaround’s scope and budget are aligned�

Management often appears to set unrealistic budget expectations� Frequently, however, what appears to be a poor decision is, in fact, appro- priate based on the information available� The work process must therefore ensure that there is communication between the core team and the steering committee� The committee must keep abreast of the scope of work and cur- rent estimate costs of execution�

Better information quality will enhance the discussions and subsequent decisions� This will solve all the budget problems, but without a regular review of scope and budget alignment, there will be little opportunity to resolve any differences�

What is the role of a member of the steering committee—what would you want them to do to help you, what would you want them not to do?

You would want them to

• Help the shutdown manager secure resources� So as a shutdown manager you want people on the steering committee who are the ultimate owners of the bodies you will need for the shutdown� • Bang heads together within their own domains if their people are

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• Interact with other steering committee members to resolve interde- partmental disagreements�

• Make timely decisions�

But, as suggested earlier, you would not want them to • Meddle in the detail

• Keep changing their minds • Play politics (tricky to prevent!)

• Undermine the authority of the shutdown manager

Turnaround coordinator: The turnaround coordinator is appointed for ensuring the turnaround execution is smooth and there are no coordination issues� The turnaround coordinator should be a person who is well accepted by all depart- ments� A good shutdown manager assumes that his or her key people can “run the show�” The manager exhibits confidence in those individuals working in areas in which he or she has no expertise, and exhibits patience with people working in areas in which he or she is familiar� A good shutdown manager is never too busy to help his or her people solve personal or professional problems�

• A poor shutdown manager considers himself or herself as indis- pensable, is overcautious with work performed in unfamiliar areas, and becomes overly interested in work he or she knows� A poor shut- down manager is always tied up in meetings�

Team leader: Team leaders manage the work of their team� Team leading is a good first step on the shutdown management ladder� You will learn much more about managing shutdowns by being a team leader in a large shutdown than you will by managing a small shutdown—you will get experience of many more control processes because many of those processes simply aren’t needed in small shutdowns�

Planning team: The lead planner and the planning team must be highly experienced, understand and maximize the use and facility of the planning program that has been selected, and be able to communicate well with all sections/external agencies� And most importantly, the planning head should be an experienced manager, leader, team player, and have effective problem- solving skills, good communication ability at all levels, analytical ability, capacity to work under pressure, and so on�

Quality team: These positions are usually already in place in most organiza- tions and can readily be incorporated into the team� However, due to the need to complete inspections early and expeditiously, it is usual to supple- ment the inspection team� It is important that such supplements receive sufficient upfront training and this must be put in place as a part of the

pre-turnaround activities� The need to coordinate major and minor activities is very important� It is important to only undertake the shutdown work that cannot be completed with the units on-stream�

Operations team: The operating staff should also be formed into teams clearly defining the responsibilities for rapid and safe unit shutdowns and start-ups� They should be trained to undertake pre-close-up inspections� They should also be encouraged to witness pressure tests in collaboration with the inspec- tion/quality groups� Other appropriate tasks can be allocated to operators during the unit downtime�

Execution team: This team is the real practitioner of the turnaround manage- ment team� The people who can really get the best out of company and con- tract resources should be put on this team� The members of this team must

• Understand the contractor

• Be innovative in maximizing the use of resources

• Be able to communicate meaningfully with the other group mem- bers, particularly the planners

• Be a leader/manager

Safety team: One of the most important activities during turnarounds is the safety, health and environment (SHE) function� This should be taken care of by the existing SHE personnel� The team should formulate the fire pre- vention precautions required to be taken during a turnaround; they should chalk out the training program required for the contract workmen, envisage the medical services required in the premises, etc�

Choosing the right people: Choosing the right people for the shutdown team then becomes job number one� Needed are specialists who can either lead skilled workgroups or execute jobs on their own� Each unit of work that the specialists will be working on is called a task� A task sometimes is small enough to be carried out by one person� Tasks that are larger require a group of workers� The lead worker from each workgroup serves on the shutdown team� The shutdown team then consists of a mix of specialists who will either work alone or lead a group of workers�

The process of team selection begins with breaking down the shutdown into major work packages, or bundles of jobs, to be performed to accomplish each piece of work�

Determination of the Skills Needed

Having identified the work packages through the work breakdown struc- ture, the shutdown manager has a good idea of the skills required of the shutdown workers�

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The skills necessary for building a house, for example, are clearly implied� A house must have a foundation� Because installing a foundation is a work package that involves placing forms and pouring cement, it requires the skills of masons� Walls also are a necessary element of a house; construction of these walls is obviously a work package for skilled carpenters� A house must be wired for electrical services; wiring is a work package for electri- cians� Small workgroups of masons, carpenters, and electricians, headed by the lead specialist in each group, will work on the house� Installing window shades is yet another work package, but it is one that does not require a workgroup� A single specialist can do this type of work� This specialist will also serve on the shutdown team, along with the lead mason, electrician, and carpenter�

The shutdown must be broken down into work packages� The shutdown manager accomplishes work breakdown with the help of every available resource� As the work packages are identified, the skills needed for them become apparent, and the shutdown manager can recruit team members with these skills—after first conferring with their supervisors for help in identifying the best prospects for the team� Recruitment is done on a person-to-person basis, with the shutdown manager explaining the process to each recruit�

Shutdown managers are generalists with many skills in their repertoire� They are problem solvers who wear many hats� Shutdown managers might indeed possess technical skills, but technical skills are not a prerequisite to shutdown management�

Your shutdown team will have technical experts, and they are the people whom the shutdown manager will rely on for technical details� There are shutdown managers with many years of experience in the industry who have successfully managed multi-million-dollar information technology shutdowns� This is because shutdown management techniques apply across industries and across shutdowns� Understanding and applying good shutdown management techniques, along with a solid understanding of general management skills, are career builders for all aspiring shutdown managers�

If roles and responsibilities are not clear, many problems will result: • Poor leadership: ultimate source of authority unclear

• People do not know their responsibilities: people will not do what they need to do to make the shutdown successful

• Not clear who can decide what: slow decision making

• Others’ roles are unclear: you don’t know who to talk to, poor communications

• Unauthorized shutdowns start: nobody’s job to authorize shutdowns • Lack of accountability: there’s little incentive to do things properly

• Resources aren’t committed: nobody is held responsible to account for breaking resource commitments

• Unclear objectives: shutdown objectives are not owned by anyone, everyone has their own opinion, moving target, potential failure So, before any shutdown begins, we must ensure that, among several other things:

• A clear management hierarchy exists for the shutdown • Each person has a defined and agreed set of responsibilities

• People will be held accountable by their line manager for performing their shutdown role

The list of the shutdown manager’s responsibilities is either very long or very short� The short one is that the shutdown manager is responsible for every- thing� Let’s break that into some of its component parts�

Define and get agreement to roles: If halfway through a shutdown it becomes clear that the sponsor doesn’t understand his or her role, whose fault is that? Defining roles means defining roles upward as well as downward� Particularly if it is the sponsor’s first shutdown, take half an hour to run through with the sponsor what he or she can do to help his or her shutdown succeed� And as mentioned previously, do the same with each member of the steering committee�

Some shutdowns go nowhere because senior managers aren’t clear what the shutdown is really trying to achieve� If you suspect this is the case, take them offsite for a day and get them to sort themselves out and hammer out a clear mission statement for the shutdown� In one case that comes to mind, a shutdown had set out to be all things to all men�

Secure resources and fashion them into a team: Getting promises from the steer- ing committee to provide people for the shutdown is one thing� Getting the managers who directly own those people to actually release them is quite another� Having acquired the bodies, you will need to do some team build- ing� This could just be a get-together meeting� But if your team comprises people from information technology (IT), human resources (HR), finance, marketing, logistics, and administration, and there has historically been antagonism between some of these groups� A weekend party may cost a few thousands but this investment in team building could save you a lot of money and a lot of stress later in the shutdown—definitely worth consider- ing for larger shutdowns�

Plan the shutdown: This covers a multitude of activities� The degree to which the shutdown manager personally plans the shutdown will depend upon its scale� If there are three people in the shutdown team, the shutdown manager can easily plan their work� If there are 300 people in the team, the shutdown manager will clearly need to delegate the detailed planning�

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Design shutdown control mechanisms: How will you report progress, control change, manage risks, etc�? Every shutdown is different; you will need to design control and reporting mechanisms that suit your shutdown or at least adapt and modify any standard processes that are available within your company�

Manage shutdown scope: If the scope is simply too big for the budget and time scale, the shutdown will fail� If you carve out a doable scope but then let it grow uncontrolled as you go along, the shutdown will fail�

Manage and report progress: This assumes there is progress to report, of course� We will cover tracking, controlling, and reporting in a later chapter�

Be accountable for quality: The shutdown manager’s appraisal should depend not only upon meeting dates and budgets but also upon the qual- ity of what is delivered�

Reward and punish: Handing out the occasional small financial award to a team member who has excelled can really boost team morale, if they view it as well deserved� Where does the cash come from? The sponsor, of course� Or put another way, put a line item in the business case headed “team awards and rewards�”

Shutdown Manager’s Skill Requirement

Let’s discuss each of the skills in more detail�

Communication Skills

One of the single most important characteristics of a first-rate shutdown manager is excellent communication skills� Written and oral communica- tions are the backbone of all successful shutdowns� Many forms of com- munication will exist during the life of your shutdown� As the creator or manager of most of the shutdown communication (shutdown documents, meeting updates, status reports, etc�), it’s your job to ensure that the informa- tion is explicit, clear, and complete so that your audience will have no trouble understanding what has been communicated�

Organizational Skills

Organizational and planning skills are probably the second most important skills a shutdown manager can possess� Organization takes on many forms� As shutdown manager, you’ll have shutdown documentation, requirements information, memos, shutdown reports, personnel records, vendor quotes, contracts, and much more to track and be able to locate in a moment’s notice� You will also have to organize meetings, put together teams, and perhaps manage and organize media release schedules depending on your shutdown�

Problem Solving

Take a little time to examine and analyze the problem, the situation caus- ing it, and the solution alternatives available� After this analysis, the shut- down manager will be able to determine the best course of action to take and implement the decision�

Negotiation and Influencing

Effective problem solving requires negotiation and influencing skills� Simply put, negotiating is working with others to come to agreement� Negotiation on shutdowns will be necessary in almost every area, from scope definition to budgets, contracts, resource assignments, and more�

Leading

Leadership and management are not synonymous terms� Leaders impart vision, gain consensus for strategic goals, establish direction, and inspire and motivate others� Managers focus on results and are concerned with get- ting the job done according to the requirements� Even though leaders and managers are not the same, shutdown managers must exhibit the character- istics of both during different times on the shutdown� Understanding when to switch from leadership to management and then back again is a finely tuned and necessary talent�

Team Building and Human Resources

Shutdown managers rely heavily on team building and human resource management skills� Teams are often formed with people from different parts of the organization� These people may or may not have worked together before—so there may be some component of team-building groundwork that will involve the shutdown manager� The shutdown manager will set the tone for the shutdown team and will help them work through the various team-forming stages to become fully functional�

Shutdown managers are often selected or not selected because of their leadership styles�

The most common reason for not selecting an individual is his or her inability to balance the technical and managerial shutdown functions�

• The greater the shutdown manager’s technical expertise, the higher is his or her propensity to overinvolve himself or herself in the tech- nical details of the shutdown�

• The greater the shutdown manager’s difficulty in delegating technical task responsibilities, the more likely it is that he or she will

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overinvolve himself or herself in the technical details of the shut- down (depending on his or her ability to do so)�

• The greater the shutdown manager’s interest in the technical details of the shutdown, the more likely it is that he or she will defend his or her role as one of a technical specialist�

• The lesser the shutdown manager’s technical expertise, the more likely it is that he or she will overstress the nontechnical shutdown functions (administrative functions)�

• A good shutdown manager performs his or her own problem-solving at the level for which he or she is responsible through delegation of problem-solving responsibilities�

• A poor shutdown manager will do subordinate problem- solving in known areas� For areas that he or she does not know, he or she requires that his or her approval be given prior to idea implementation�

• A good shutdown manager develops, maintains, and uses a single integrated management system in which authority and responsibility are delegated to the subordinates� In addition, he or she knows that occasional slippages and overruns will occur, and simply tries to minimize their effect�

• A poor shutdown manager delegates as little authority and respon- sibility as possible, and runs the risk of continual slippages and overruns� A poor shutdown manager maintains two management information systems: one informal system for himself or herself and one formal (eyewash) system simply to impress his or her superiors�

• A good shutdown manager finds that subordinates willingly accept responsibility, are decisive in attitude toward the shutdown, and are