Program and Portfolio Management Information System

PROGRAM AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
PROGRAM AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
Name
Institution

PROGRAM AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
Introduction
BP as an organization has had a series of disastrous occurrences that have raised the concerns of
the public. The two major ones included; Deepwater horizon oil spill disaster which occurred in
2010 and Texas City Refinery explosion which happened in 2005. When such a disasters occurs
we always want to understand the why and how. It is so easy to blame technical failure but the
Chief Counsel’s team and U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board have a different
opinion. According to them, the management leadership was the root course of the disaster.
Despite the visible cause being technical failure, the management would have done something to
prevent the occurrence through proper risk management strategies. Chapter 5 of the Chief
Counsel’s report on BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill elaborates the failures of the management
that might have led to the great disaster. The failures identified include; poor leadership,
communication and training of employees, lack of commitment in the supervision of the
employees, poor risk managements and application of inadequate technology (Chief Counsel,
2011). The Investigation board report also shows the management failure to focus on safety of
their policies and procedures.
General Systems Management

PROGRAM AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
This is a form of management where most of the decision making is decentralized. The
organization is divided into independent departments with their own bosses. According to
general systems theory, these departments interrelate when necessary and collaborate with other
departments to achieve the overall organization goals (Managing research library, 2018).
However, each one of them sets its own goals that of course aim towards benefiting the
organization.
BP is almost the opposite of the expectations of general systems theory. Conflicts between
managers of different sections is witnessed. The engineering team leader, David Sim expresses
his displeasure in the way they were fighting over decisions with the BP wells team leader John
Guide (Chief Counsel, 2011). However, an element of interrelation and collaboration is
witnessed when David clarifies that his previous expressions of complains to John was part of
coaching. On the other hand, we see John acknowledging the mistake and promising to consult
his team in order to make informed decisions.
The organization should adopt Decision Matrix system thinking tool to improve the quality of
decision making. This is because it allows choosing from a pool of multiple solutions(Burge,
2016). The probability of choosing the appropriate solution is high. Management flight simulator
can also be used alongside decision matrix. It is a powerful system thinking tool that can assist in
molding decision makers (Kim, 2018). It simulates an environment where manager can make
complex decisions like they are in a real world (Reynolds, 2011). This reduces the chances of the
managers experimenting their decision making abilities with critical life situations like the
Deepwater oil saga.
Organizational Structures, forms and Culture

PROGRAM AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
Organization structure is the way in which the organization’s authority lines are structured. The
centralized structure is where a higher entity has so much authority over the lower entities while
decentralized structure is where departments have independence over some decisions.
According to Chief Counsel’s Report, before April, 2010, the business unit structure was
centralized. Operations and engineering Personnel reported to one manager. In April BP
reorganized business unit leadership structure such that operation personnel reported to John
Guide while engineers reported to David Sims. In most cases, competence of an employee is
determined by their level of experience in the specific field. The Chief Counsel’s report
identifies a case where BP assigns a responsibility to a manager who has little experience on the
particular area (Chief Counsel, 2011). Gregg Walz was appointed as the engineering leader yet
he didn’t have experience with Macondo well. His lack of experience had resulted to him taking
unusually too long to make decisions. BP constantly reorganized its management team without
putting into consideration the negative impacts. The reorganization tore the managers apart
rather than unifying them and brought distractions. Some of the managers admitted that they
were experiencing challenges after the reorganization. They spent a lot of time trying to
harmonize the work relationship between operation and engineering teams who were initially
reporting to one manager and now reporting to two different entities. The issue here is about the
time it took to resume to normal operations after the reorganization. Time is a vital resource in
such an industry. A minor delay greatly affects the overall performance of the organization. All
these challenges with decision making and poor leadership can be traced down to the
organizational structure.