Framework

of the BP Knowledge Management Methodology

❶ A learning cycle – before, during and after any event – supported by simple process tools

❷ The lessons arising from the learning loop are agreed and distilled by a community of practice – peers across the organization who have a stake in agreeing and defining BP's best practice.

❸ The lessons – both specific and generic are incorporated into "Knowledge Assets" on the corporate intranet, where they represent a living focus for BP's experience around strategic and operational areas.

Action Plan for Competitive Learning

developed by John Browne, former CEO, British Petroleum

Anyone in the company who is not directly accountable for making a profit shall be involved in creating and distributing knowledge that the company can use to → make a profit

Dual Citizenship

The need to share and learn drives staff towards dual citizenship:

❶ affiliated both to the business unit, and also

❷ committed to a knowledge network of peers across the business units.

Co-evolving with Internal and External Players

Internally, the organization co-evolves with each business unit, department and function.

Externally,  the organization co-evolves with its customers and suppliers.

The knowledge management methodology pioneered in BP's is encompassed by a simple framework, which describes a learning cycle – before, during and after any event – which is supported by simple process tools.

The lessons arising from that learning loop are agreed and distilled by a community of practice.

Finally, the lessons – both specific and generic are incorporated into "Knowledge Assets" on the corporate intranet.

Benefits

The business benefits of applying a consistent approach to knowledge management have been significant. BP business managers attributed hundreds of millions of dollars of added value as a direct result of using this approach.

A practical example of this has been in the cost reduction in the construction of European retail sites:

At the beginning of 1998 a challenge is set of reducing the build costs of retail sites in Europe by 10%. The Alliance (a joint venture between BP and Bovis) is responsible for the management of these activities in Europe. The Alliance was engaged in the benefits of knowledge management and invited the BP KM Team to help them achieve this outcome. Step change in costs was delivered in 1998 (savings of $74 million) due to the harvesting and sharing of knowledge between the project engineers in Europe. This gave BP Downstream Retail competitive advantage in the Mature European Marketplace. This knowledge is now also being leveraged on a global scale by project engineers in Venezuela, China, Poland, and Japan.

^{Source: "KM & British Petroleum", SAIC}

Similar examples of increased performance have come from BP's KM application in speeding up business restructuring, developing new oil & gas fields, improving plant productivity and accelerating new retail market entry.

Browne has developed an action plan for competitive corporate learning to spur changes in people's attitudes and ultimately formal and informal rules that govern the organization's behavior. "The wonderful thing about knowledge is that it is relatively inexpensive to replicate if you can capture it. Most activities or tasks are not onetime events. Whether it's drilling a well or conducting a transaction at a service station, we do the same things repeatedly. Our philosophy is fairly simple: Every time we do something again, we should do it better than the last time," says John Browne.

Virtual Teamwork Project

BP Exploration (BPX) was reorganized into 42 separate business units. Then, BP launched the Virtual Teamwork Project (VTP), its first major KM initiative. The aim of VTP was to encourage the sharing of knowledge and to motivate the business units to utilize IT tools to improve their business. The VTP was designed to enable employees to share task-specific knowledge and develop partnership relationships with the employees of other units. Later the company launched a series of KM initiatives, which yielded excellent financial results for its business operations. Following the successful implementation of VTP, BP launched various KM tools such as Peer Assist, After Action Review, BP Connect, Retrospect and Human portal.

Knowledge Management Team (KMT)

BP became one of the first few companies to treat KM as a separate discipline when it established a Knowledge Management Team (KMT) in 1997. John Browne, British Petroleum's has a personal interest in the subject, and established KMT to champion and harness the benefits of organizational learning both within and across its flattened hierarchy.

Peer Groups

In order to integrate the efforts of the business units engaged in the same business activities, they were organized into peer groups. They met periodically to discuss the performance of their businesses.