Managing Complex Project Name of the Student: Osuagwu-chijioke Kelechi Student Number: s5025657 Assignment Name: Project for Learning Your A1 is not as good as it should be. While I can see you have worked hard to prepare this assignment, there are two key aspects that you didn’t do properly. But first the positive side. It is well written, adequate format, the PfL is well structured and clear. Theme 1. Your explanation of why the Cynefin model will help you to explain failure of DWH is correct. Would be great if have had an expanded explanation. It was not necessary to describe and to ‘apply’ te Cynefin to the DWH case. Application will be done in A2. Themes 2-4: section of Change management is OK but you have NOT properly explained why Change management model wil help you to explain the failure of BP. In this section you only summarised some of the mistakes of DWH, but there are no connections between that and the use of Change Management models. One of the aspects that may explain why you have not properly explained why change management is useful to explain the DWH case, are your references. You have many references about the DWH case. They were not necessary. In the provided case, you have enough information. Conversely you have two (2) references only related to Change Management. Your submission was 4 days late but I have not penalised you. I am sure you will do better in A2. Your mark is 29/40 Griffith University. Summary of the Case The deepwater horizon oil spill is also known as BP oil disaster or the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. This disaster happended on april 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP operated Macondo Prospect. The incident was followed by the gas release and subsequent explosion occurring on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The oilrig, which BP was leasing from Transocean, a Swiss company, was operating on the Macondo exploration well. This well was located approximately 50 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The summary of the case is being presented here (Abbrian et al., 2011). Through the disaster, 11 people were missing and never found after the disaster was sustained. Thus, the incident was considered as the biggest accidental marine oil spill in the petroleum industry’s history, which estimated as 8 to 31 % larger in volume than the previously largest Ixtoc I oil spill (Summerhayes, 2011). According to the government estimation, the total discharge of oil was 4.9 million barrels. Several attempts were undertaken to contain the flow, but failed repeatedly, which led to the sealing of the well on September 19, 2010. Reports in early 2012 informed that the well site was still leaking. The observations revealed two visibly different types of surface oil were observed in the waters of Gulf of Mexico as the resulted consequences of BP deepwater horizon spill. The explosion leads to 11 death and 17 injury cases. However, it was not the first time that the organization was in massive crisis, on March 24, 1989, similar accident occurred as BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill. The Deepwater Horizon was a 10-year-old semi-submersible, mobile, floating, dynamically positioned drilling rig, which have the capacity to operate in waters up to 10000 feet deep. The organization was established by South Korean company Hyundai Heavy Industries, owned by Transocean. The rig was drilling an 18360 feet below sea level deep exploratory well in around 5100 feet water. On 20th April 2010, at around 9.45 pm CTD, high pressure methane gas was formed in the well, which expanded into the drilling riser and rose into drilling rig. In the rig, the gas was ignited and exploded; the explosion engulfed the platform. During the time of explosion, 126 crew members were on board, with 7 BP employees, 79 Transocean and employees of different companies; within which 11 were missing, who were never found through the U.S. Coast Guard search operation and assumed to be died in the explosion. However, 94 crew members were rescued by helicopter or lifeboat, among which 17 were injured. The oil rig sank on 22nd April 2010, morning (Skogdalen et al., 2011). Besides the explosion, the oil leakage was found out during 22nd April afternoon, once a wide oil slick began to spread at the oil rig site. The oil spread was continued for 87 days. The organization BP estimated a flow rate of 1000 to 5000 barrels per day; however, the initial flow rate was estimated as 62000 barrels per day by Flow Rate Technical Group. The total estimated volume of leaked oil was estimated to be 4.9 million barrels with 10 % uncertainty, collected oil; in total making the event as the largest accidental spill in the world. According to the satellite images, the spill directly affected a wide area of ocean, estimated as 68,000 square miles (180,000 km2). The oil was washed up till early June 2010 on 201 km of Louisiana’s Coast and along the Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coastlines. Oil sludge appeared in the Intracoastal Waterway and on Pensacola Beach and the Gulf Islands National Seashore (Griggs, 2011). Several issues were raised regarding the appearance of underwater, horizontally extended plumes of dissolved oil. Researchers interpreted that the deep plumes of dissolve oil and gas was likely to restrained to the northern Gulf of Mexico; however, the key effect on the dissolved oxygen will be long lasting but delayed. Some scientists at the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference, in 2013, depicted that the risk of damage to ecosystems and commercial fishers was enhanced as one-third of the oil might have mixed with the deep ocean sediments. From the Louisiana coast, more than 4600000 pounds of oiled material was removed in 2013 (Skogdalen et al., 2011). Several short term and long term attempts were undertaken to mitigate the global issue, however, repeated failure was noted. Initially, the organization attempted to close the blowout preventer valves on the wellhead with rarely used underwater vehicles, the attempt was unsuccessful. A 125 tonnes containment dome was placed over the oil to storage vessel, but it failed due to the blocked by methane hydrates crystals. A riser insertion tube was inserted into the pipe and it collected 924,000 US gallons of oil before it was removed as the collected gas was flared. Containment booms stretching over 4,200,000 feet were deployed, either to corral the oil or as barriers to protect marshes, mangroves, shrimp/crab/oyster ranches or other ecologically sensitive areas. A barrier island was planned to be developed for protecting the coast of Louisiana. However, the plan revealed poor results. The three basic approaches for removing the oil from the water were: combustion, offshore filtration and collection for later processing. For these 33 million US gallons of tainted water was recovered, including 5 million US gallons of oil. Till middle of July, 2010, 411 controlled in-situ fires remediated around 265000 barrels of oil. Several national initiations were undertaken to protect environment against these kinds of investigators. Creation of a cross-purposes regulator, the rise of environmental Laws are being taken into consideration. However, changing technology and changing industry structure outpacing regulations. Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and Oil Spill Response Plans needed to be regulated carefully (Griggs, 2011). The Cynefin model The Cynefin Model of The Cynefin Framework is known as a problem solving tool that can help an organization to put any type of condition into five domains which are defined by cause-and-effect relationship. This model is capable to evaluate a situation and respond properly. Figure 1: The Cynefin Framework (Source: Gorzeń & Okręglicka, 2014) From the above model it can be seen that this model includes a variety of conditions to categorize an issue or decision clearly which helps to implement proper responds. This model is useful for product development, marketing and for developing organizational strategy. However, the reason that this framework will be useful to develop the pfl on the case study of The Deepwater case is its capability to help the organizations to make better decisions in a crisis or emergency situations. This framework is appropriate as it can help companies to avoid using similar management styles or decision-making approaches (Fodness, 2016). This concept also helps the business organizations to become flexible and adaptable while making decisions. Now, this model can become very useful for British Petroleum to deal with any future issues similar to its Deepwater Horizon case. From the case, it is clear that the organization made several numbers of mistakes that led to this major incident. They took numerous wrong decisions that made the situation worse. Therefore, it is obvious that the management will never want to make similar decisions for any future crisis and while doing so this model will become the most useful tool. The five domains of this framework are hereby discussed below. Obvious contexts: In this domain, explicit steps are undertaken that dictate the next stage of the method. This domain also states that an organization will have to sense, categorize and respond to apparent decisions. However, according to Gorzeń and Okręglicka (2014), this domain also possesses a threat or challenge. Leaders of an organization might think that their previous idea will work and therefore; they will not pursue new innovative ideas. However, in the case of Deepwater Horizon, the chances are almost zero that the management of the company will face this challenge. As their previous strategy failed significantly, they will never follow the same strategy in the future (De Wolf & Mejri, 2013). Complicated context: Complicated problems might save numerous numbers of appropriate solutions. This domain of the Cynefin framework provides a precise relationship between cause and effect; however the chances are high that it will not be visible to anyone as the problem is complicated. Within this domain, the decision making approach includes sense, evaluate and respond (Lepmets et al., 2014). In simply, it can be stated that an organization will have to evaluate the condition, analyze what they know and what would be the best response. From the above definition about this particular domain it can be stated that British Petroleum will be benefited by this model. The case and the consequences of Deepwater Horizon are extremely completed for the organization. The management could see and realize the problems however had no solutions to deal with them (Lamendella et al., 2014). In this situation, it is necessary for the management to follow the steps of this domain to sense the current situation, analyze how much information they have and make the best possible decision. Complex Contexts According to Fodness (2016), sometimes it is not possible to find out one correct solution for a problem in the complex conditions. These types of conditions are unpredictable and the best possible approach here is to “probe-sense-respond.” Business organizations must not try to control the condition. In this situation the best strategy would be to have patience and to look for patterns. In the end the management can motivate a solution to emerge. In this context, business organizations will have accepted their failure as a part of the learning method. Communication is vital in this situation as diverse people must come forward with creative solutions. Brainstorming can be used to find out new ideas. The current situation that can be understood from the provided case, it can be stated that British Petroleum is also in a similar condition because of Deepwater Horizon scenario. It is absolutely impossible for them to control the situation as it provided too much damage to the environment. Therefore, the management should follow this strategy and should wait to find out patterns that (Wiens, 2015) can help them to minimize the negative effects of this condition. Chaotic context In any condition that is chaotic, relationship between cause and effect does not exist. In this situation the primary goal of any organization should be to develop order and stability. Crisis and emergency conditions frequently fall into this domain (Lepmets et al., 2014). The decision making process under this domain is act-sense-respond. The management of British Petroleum will have to do the same thing as they will need to address the most pressing issues. Next they will have to sense where the stability is and where there is no stability. In the end, the management will have to respond to move the condition from chaos to complexity. Besides, the management will also have to navigate chaotic conditions by conducting risk analysis that is also supported by this domain of The Cynefin model (Pranesh et al., 2017). Disorder It is always difficult for the companies to find out when it is in a disorder condition. If an organization is not sure that which of the mentioned four domains are dominant, it will rely on decision making methods that are known as simple and comfortable. In this condition the management of British Petroleum will have to gather more knowledge about the scenario so that they can move into new domain and can take proper decision after that. Change Management processes Figure 2: Change Management Process (Source: Cameron & Green, 2015) This model of change management includes for domains which are prepare, design, execute and sustain. In the prepare stage organizations identify the problem and detect why it is required to implement changes. Besides, in this stage the management also understands the environmental factors that are affecting the business (Cameron & Green, 2015). In the design stage, vision is created along with the possible chances of resistance during the change. Based on the previous factors, then change management plan is developed where change path is also created along with project development plan. The next step which is to execute, the development plan is executed by using proper change model (Booth, 2015). In the last step which is to sustain, reviews are gathered that helps to support the change practices. Now, the question is why British Petroleum needs to implement change management process in their organization and how this model can help them. In order to understand that, it is important to point out the failures and mistakes committed by the company. The first mistake of the organization was not to follow a culture of safety. The management of the organization never had any emergency plan and was not prepared to deal with such critical situation. Besides, investigations also revealed that the management neglected serious warnings few days before the accident. Therefore, change management model can help the organization to establish a department that will be ready to deliver a risk management plan for any type of operation. Secondly, the management of BP totally failed to express apprehension and compassion to the victims and other stakeholders. The management of the organizations was neither quick nor not precise in responding to the accident. Its initial response created a lot of harm to its image and reputation (Wickman, 2014). Therefore, this is another stage where the change is required. A consumer and stakeholder centric organizational culture must be developed where the organization will think more about its stakeholders. Besides, a quick response team should also be there that will gather precise information about a disaster and will provide honest responses to the media. The third failure of the organization was to select an arrogant CEO, Tony Hayward. CEO of any organization also acts as the spokesperson of the company. A spokesperson fulfills a central role of re-developing the trust and credibility of the company at the time of a crisis. Tony Hayward did not fulfill his responsibilities and did not express his compassions towards the victims of the organization (Isaksson et al., 2014). He in the first place downplayed the spill and minimized its harshness by saying that environmental impacts of this accident will be moderate. Therefore, a change is required in this department of the company also. Fourth, the management of the organizations failed to keep the vision of the organization intact which was to follow environment friendly operations. In the year of 2000, the management changed the name of the company from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum. The new logo included green and yellow sunburst and the organization tried to show that they are environmentally responsible company (Wickman, 2014). After the Deepwater Horizon incident, the stakeholders understood that it was only a “Green washing.” Therefore, a complete organizational change is required where employees of each department will only work to fulfill the vision of the organization without thinking about the profitability only. References Abbrian, R. M., Carranza, M. M., SETo, K. L., SNydER, S. 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