Digital Renaissance: empowering change in Digital

Emerging technologies are creating new rules for businesses and transforming the entire energy industry at an unprecedented pace. To keep up with these advances, and to deliver a roadmap that will allow IOGP Members to navigate through the numerous opportunities and challenges ahead, IOGP has created the Digital Transformation Committee (DTC).

The Committee will utilize an Agile approach to deliver its work – a first at IOGP. The Agile methodology is well known for its enhanced adaptability, enabling project teams to respond effectively to changes and deliver projects quickly and incrementally. The approach has already yielded results. Barely 100 days into its existence, the Committee is about to release a set of publications that will have a significant impact.

In May, the Committee held a three-day, face-to-face meeting in Houston, kindly hosted by Chevron, to discuss digital transformation strategy and capabilities. It was attended by representatives of 13 IOGP Member Companies and associations.

The objectives of the meeting included:

• Developing insights and recommendations as to which digital capabilities the industry should make its Key Focus Areas (KFAs) to enable digital transformation over the next two to three years, maximizing the benefits of the evolving technologies
• Reviewing existing proposed digital opportunities and aligning with the identified KFAs
• Identifying KFAs for digital skills and propose a library of skills to support digital transformation capabilities
• Selecting relevant, high-impact digital personas on which to focus skills initiatives in the near term
• Creating four new expert groups to take strategic initiatives forward
• Reviewing and approving the Committee strategy, high-level business processes, digital opportunities workflows, and the 2024 business plan

The meeting included three workshops where Members could select the top five key focus areas for 2023-2025, and review existing proposed projects for relevance to each; review the outcomes of a previously held workshop on digital skills; and discuss the implications for programmes and initiatives that IOGP will support to help Members guide their organizations through their own transformation efforts.

The Opportunities Screening Expert Group (OSEG) aims to groom the backlog of digital opportunities submitted to the DTC. The Change Management and Strategic Communications Expert Group (CMEG) will provide guidance on communicating the activities and accomplishments of the DTC, and support adoption across the industry. The Digital Skills Expert Group (DSEG) will formulate high impact personas to focus engagement on the KFAs for digital skills and competencies. The Digital Platforms Expert Group (DPEG) will advise the DTC on infrastructure for digital platforms.

These Expert Groups will work closely with the IOGP Standards Committee, specifically the Information Standards Subcommittee (ISSC), Workforce Energy Committee (when formally established by IOGP), the Safety Committee, as well as other IOGP Committees and external parties, to identify and progress high value, industry-wide digital opportunities

For more details on the Digital Transformation Committee work and upcoming deliverables, please contact the IOGP Digital and Geomatics Principal Manager at lks@iogp.org.