Opportunity Realisation must be managed as a single, integrated process.
With many companies experience, reinforced by other research, is that excellent project management
performance has the following process characteristics:
• a formal opportunity/project management process is in place and is applied
consistently across all projects
• the process is business-focussed and addresses the full lifecycle of the opportunity
• opportunities are moved through the process in a series of controlled steps
• control is assured by the need to meet defined objectives agreed with all major
stakeholders and by detailed scrutiny of recommendations and risks and a formal
decision review at the end of each step in the process.
• objectives and performance are benchmarked against external industry.
The Opportunity Realisation Process (ORP) described in this article has the above
characteristics and its application is mandatory for all EP capital projects with a total cost
in excess of $US 20 million. As stated in Chapter 1, the ORP:
• identifies a business opportunity
• defines the opportunity objectives and proves its viability
• decides the way in which the opportunity will be exploited
• develops the opportunity implementation strategy
• plans and implements the opportunity from the time of generation of the initial
idea until an asset is in operation.
The process describes the logical, structured approach to opportunity/project planning
that maximises the value of an opportunity and that, in its basic aspects, has been adopted
in the past by well managed projects when realising an opportunity. While these projects
may not have used the language of the ORP nor some of the methods and tools that are
now available for opportunity realisation, they will have followed the phased sequence of
progressing the opportunity and will have checked that work is sufficiently complete, risks
understood and objectives supported before entering the next phase. The ORP can be
applied to the realisation of all New Venture and existing OU hydrocarbon and non-
hydrocarbon opportunities.1
2Prior to the development of the ORP there was no documented, structured process within
Company EP available for the management of an opportunity through its full life cycle – from
the identification of the opportunity through to its final value realisation (i.e, operation).
ORP is a decision-based, front-end loaded process that is divided into the five logical phases
(or stages) that all opportunities will pass through in their realisation. A decision
check-point (“gate”) punctuates each phase.
There are two desired outcomes from the use of the ORP:
• Improved Decision Quality – selecting and progressing the right opportunities
• Improved Project Outcomes – setting and meeting challenging objectives.
Through the application of the process opportunity/project teams will define the:
• Phases that a business opportunity or project passes through • Required major deliverables from each phase
• Key milestone events and decision requirements
• Staffing needs for each phase (and, especially, continuity requirements)
• Tools that will assist in maximising value
• Requirements for a Value Assurance framework including corporate governance
• Companies common terminology in opportunity/project realisation
The focus of the first three ORP phases is on identifying and maximising the value of the
opportunity and the significant emphasis on these stages leads to the term Front-End
Loading as indicated in Figure 2.1.1. This is discussed further in 2.3 and 2.4 below.
The structured application of the Opportunity Realisation Process to any opportunity:
• Defines the opportunity (Opportunity Framing)3
• Plans the opportunity (Roadmap)3
• Maximises the value of the opportunity (Toolbox)
• Assures the value of the opportunity through corporate governance (Decision
Making and Value Assurance)
These four key aspects of the process are discussed in 2.2 – 2.5 following and the Guiding
Principles that are considered essential when applying the process are given in 2.6.
Questions that are frequently asked concerning application of ORP – like processes have
been captured in the ORP Toolbox.4