Torgeir K. Haavik

Making drilling operations visible: the role of articulation work for organisational safety

In the petroleum industry, new technologies and work processes are currently being developed as an innovation strategy for better, faster and safer drilling. In this article, some features of today’s work processes that contribute to successful operations are presented and discussed. The articulation work involved in handling the transient complexity of operations involves making black-boxed and invisible work processes visible and transparent. It is argued that this articulation work contributes to the organisation’s understanding and knowledge of the drilling processes and the dependencies that exist between different actors. In addition to contributing to ongoing problem solving, the articulation work also contributes to the awareness of possible future events. Following this insight, it is argued that efforts to improve operational efficiency and safety by introducing new tools and work processes should focus not only on the capability of new tools to support decisions and actions by instrumentation and automation, but attention should also be paid to the existing articulation work and its role in the accomplishment of work. In that way, the contributions of today’s articulation work can be strengthened instead of lost, and the outcome of the change processes can be even better than anticipated.

Chasing shared understanding in drilling operations

Lack of shared understanding is frequently found to be the main cause when accidents are investigated. Still, few studies explicitly explore and document the causal effects of shared understanding in successful work. Thus, the attribution of insufficient shared understanding as an accident cause lacks the substantiation of shared understanding as a contributor to successful work. In this article a case of measurement discrepancies in an offshore drilling operation is studied, and in the elaboration of the case shared understanding is found not to qualify as a condition with significant impact on the collaborative work. One important reason for this is the epistemological inadequacy of the different concepts of shared understanding. Although more critical research on shared understanding is needed before one can conclude more generic on this topic, the findings are important to the current development of Integrated Operations where shared understanding is pointed out as an important target area.

New Tools, Old Tasks: Safety Implications of New Technologies and Work Processes for Integrated Operations in the Petroleum Industry

New Tools, Old Tasks explores how Integrated Operations (IO) will influence the safety of offshore drilling operations. The book is based on several years of practical experience combined with a research study on the safety of IO within the drilling domain. The overall objective of the book is to explore how safety can be understood in the change process of Integrated Operations, and to provide recommendations for how IO may be developed and implemented in a way that will benefit both safety and efficiency of the operations.A crucial thread throughout the book is that the understanding of normal work processes is key to understanding the conditions for safe operations. This is reflected in the books structure and content; the nature of normal drilling operations is the focus, including how technologies and work processes are aligned to meet the dominating challenges of the industry (these challenges need not be directly linked to safety/risk). It is argued that the influence of IO on the safety of drilling operations depends more on how IO relates to the existing fundamental challenges of drilling operations than on the design and properties of the different IO technologies and work processes as such.

Prospective sensemaking in the operating theatre

This paper reports a study of sensemaking in operating theatres. We explored the role of sensemaking processes in the safe and efficient performance of surgical procedures. The study is based on observations, semi-structured interviews, and informal conversations with surgeons, anaesthetists, operating nurses, and anaesthetic nurses. We found that the members of the operating team paid great attention to what might happen during the next seconds, minutes, and hours. They thus built a capacity for anticipation which enabled them to collaborate smoothly and prepared them to handle undesired but foreseeable occurrences. According to Karl Weick, organisational sensemaking is retrospective in the sense that we make sense of our actions and experience after they have occurred. However, our findings suggest that prospective sensemaking is a precondition for safe and successful completion of surgical procedures. Instead of waiting for things to happen and making sense of them in retrospect, the operating team constructed plausible projections of what might happen and how they might handle such plausible futures. Prospective sensemaking is thus less event-driven than retrospective sensemaking. We argue that safe and efficient performance of surgical procedures depends on the quality of prospective sensemaking. We comment on how technology (including procedures) can support prospective sensemaking. Finally, we discuss the relationships between “prospective sensemaking” and related terms, such as “heedful interrelating”, “mindfulness”, “situation awareness”, and “anticipatory thinking”.

Punctuation and extrapolation: representing a subsurface oil reservoir

This article discusses how data are made to represent subsurface phenomena in petroleum production. Drawing on studies of the subsurface disciplines in an oil company, and the multitude of sensor data employed there, we suggest that sensor data as representational artifacts are punctuated along three axes. We refer to this as spatial, temporal and aspectual punctuation. Whereas, the first two refer to the positioning of data in space and time, the latter refers to the sensors’ response to single aspects of the interaction with a subsurface phenomenon. We show how extrapolation of punctuated data is a crucial element of the work of understanding the subsurface. It is when the punctuated data points are creatively extrapolated along the three axes of punctuation that ideas and models of the subsurface phenomena take shape. Consequently, we argue that the processes of punctuation and extrapolation are the keys to understand how knowledge about the subsurface is created at the onshore office. Punctuation gives mobility whereas extrapolation is necessary to establish reference between the punctuated data and the inaccessible oil reservoir. We specifically discuss the implications this has for reservoir models as representational artifacts.

Keep your coats on: augmented reality and sensework in surgery and surgical telemedicine

In Norway, the health sector has recently been looking to the petroleum industry for inspiration with respect to innovative solutions for telemedicine and patient safety. In this article, the potential for and challenges associated with augmented reality (AR) tools and practices in surgery and surgical telemedicine are investigated. Work practices in co-localised surgical operations in a neurosurgical operating theatre are investigated and analysed using central organising principles for distributed collaborative work as envisioned by Integrated Operations in the petroleum industry. Digital representations are found to take on a central role in surgical work, and they show a promising potential for the future inclusion of neurosurgery into the portfolio of telemedicine. However, the article warns against organising telemedical work processes according to theoretical principles for division of labour that are not rooted in actual practices. In line with a constructivist approach to ontology, there are many realities that may be augmented, and inadequate work processes may cause construction and augmentation of inadequate realities and hence suboptimal outcomes of surgical procedures. This possibility of AR enabling both desired and undesired outcomes is in the article referred to as the Janus face of augmented reality.

Learning from successful operations – opportunities, challenges and a paradox

Abstract Learning from successful operations has received less attention than learning from accidents and near misses, both among practitioners and researchers. The article reports intermediate results from a project aimed at reducing this gap. We discuss (1) criteria to identify an operation as successful with regard to safety, (2) implications concerning successful operations that can be derived from current organizational theories of safety, (3) how learning from successful operations can take place in practice and (4) challenges related to learning from successful operations. The article is based on qualitative interviews with personnel in two drilling companies, document studies, observations on an offshore drilling rig, observations in a well-control simulator, and from a workshop in an oil company. Learning from successful operations can take place either through spontaneous mechanisms or through mechanisms deliberately put in place by management. We have identified several challenges related to learning from successful operations.