Organisation Design for Energy and Utilities
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
What this looks like in energy and utilities
The parts of organisation design that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Structuring Projects and Operations
Two organisations that must share people.
What this coversHide
Structuring Projects and Operations
Two organisations that must share people.
What this coversHideEnergy businesses run a project organisation that forms and disbands and an operations organisation that must never stop. Structuring them as one produces confusion; structuring them as two produces silos.
Project organisation
- Project director and management structure
- Discipline leads - civil, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation
- Site management and supervision
- Commissioning and handover teams
Operations organisation
- Plant or network management
- Shift structure and control room
- Maintenance - planned and breakdown
- Safety, quality and technical services
- Reporting lines during mobilisation and after handover
- Authority limits for project and operations decisions
- Shared services - HR, finance, procurement, HSE
- Transition points between project and operations
- Competency and authorisation ownership
- Succession for shift in-charge and plant leadership
Defining the handover point between project and operations explicitly is the structural decision that prevents the most common dispute in these businesses.
The general method — what organisation design covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the organisation design page. What is above is the part that differs for energy and utilities.
Other HR topics for energy and utilities
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for energy and utilities, or another industry.