Abstract
Over the last three years (at the time of writing this paper) the upstream oil and gas industry has experienced substantial changes at a structural level due a variety of factors including the low cost of oil, depleting reserves, maturing regions, strong competition, and the high costs for development projects. The growing pressure on organizations to operate more economically has led to the recent spate of costโreduction initiatives including acquisitions, strategic alliances, joint ventures and consortia agreements. Senior management are realizing that it is their intangible assets, in the form of knowledge, which provide the key to their continued success and their company policies are seeking to identify and manage their knowledge base more effectively by implementing a range of initiatives addressing behavioural, process and technological issues. This paper illustrates how, through the use of a knowledge broker, a major project was handled to realize the knowledge potential of the individuals and the team. Main outcomes from the ongoing project include the establishment of understanding and buyโin amongst all the alliance partners to the use of shared measures to align objectives, the development of a management structure to support the performance management system and the maintenance of pace and focus through the provision of dedicated resources. Copyright ยฉ 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.