High performing team framework for oil and gas engineering construction projects in Malaysia

Abstract

Oil and gas industry faces one of its toughest periods from a prolonged drop in oil prices, which began in June 2014 until the recent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Oil and gas industry must now collectively shape and execute a decisive and potentially transformative response while engaging with the key project stakeholders efficiently to improve existing relationships between the construction team project members. Hence, creating a high performing team is seen as one of the solutions to enhance the overall productivity and eventually produce high-end project outcomes that exceed standards. Therefore, this study aims to appraise high performing team for oil and gas engineering construction projects in Malaysia with the objectives of identifying the concepts of team integration, investigating the characteristics of high performing team, assessing the high performing team integration practices and proposing a framework of high performing team characteristics and integration practices for oil and gas construction project in Malaysia. It is found that the concepts of team integration are about bringing together members of different disciplines by merging goals, aligning process and work culture while being mutually supportive, cohesive, and holding unified responsibility to satisfy internal and external customer’s expectation during the life cycle of an oil and gas construction project. The high performing team characteristics and high performing team integration practices identified from the literature review contributed to the development of a conceptual framework and questionnaire respectively which guided a survey on 418 oil and gas industry personnel in Malaysia. Commitment, trust between team members and cohesion were amongst 14 high performing team characteristics in combination with no blame culture, creation of a single co-located team, leadership facilitation and single team focus were amongst 16 high performing team integration practices that formed the conceptual framework. The primary data gathered was then analysed via Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS). In addition, the framework consisting of 25 most significant high performing team characteristics, such as commitment, clear roles and clear purpose, and 14 most significant high performing team integration practices, such as communicating effectively, commitment from top management and leadership facilitation, was validated via simplified Delphi Method involving five experts. The Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) unique project complexity elements such as scope definition, cost of changes and market conditions were added to the validated framework as elements that can hinder the overall performance of the project. From the discussion, definition for each of the components in their model and the adaptability to the EPC oil and gas construction project were also added to the validated framework of high performing team for oil and gas engineering construction project in Malaysia. The framework proposed by this study is expected to improve the oil and gas construction project delivery team and eventually enhance the performance of the oil and gas engineering construction projects in Malaysia.