What My Sojourn in Shell Taught Me About Project Management
In many organizations, project management is seen as something reserved for major capital initiatives, large transformation programs, or high-profile client engagements. But that view misses an important reality: a great deal of operational work is, in fact, project work in disguise.
During my time in the pipeline asset team at Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) some 21 years ago, our responsibility was the maintenance of Shell’s pipelines in Nigeria. The work covered internal and external condition monitoring, including intelligent pigging, repairs such as clamping and sectional replacement, spill control, and remediation, among others.
On the surface, these activities were treated as routine operations. In practice, they were a stream of small, time-bound, resource-constrained initiatives with defined outcomes. In other words, they were projects.
The problem was that they were not managed as such.
Because the team was not formally recognized as a project team, structured project management systems and processes were absent. There were no clear mechanisms for requirement gathering, scope definition, estimating, review, or approval. The result was predictable. Planning became painfully slow and unnecessarily frustrating. I still remember how difficult it was to develop an annual project plan for a portfolio worth about 80 million dollars. What should have been a disciplined planning exercise turned into months of circular conversations, repeated revisions, and avoidable delays.
Performance reporting was no better. Gathering updates was a struggle because reporting expectations were not clearly embedded in team processes. Cooperation was inconsistent, and the absence of a common management framework made even basic coordination feel burdensome. At the time, I kept making the case to colleagues that although our team was not labeled a project team, much of what we handled consisted of small projects and should be managed accordingly if we wanted the efficiency and effectiveness that project management brings.
That perspective only gained wider acceptance when management brought in experts to train the entire team through a one-week project management bootcamp. The shift in understanding was immediate. Some colleagues admitted, “I can now see why you were asking for those reports.” What had previously seemed like unnecessary demands now made sense within the discipline of planning, monitoring, accountability, and delivery.
That experience reinforced a lesson many organizations still need to learn: poor performance is not always caused by lack of effort or lack of technical competence. Sometimes the real issue is failure to recognize work for what it truly is. When activities involve defined objectives, timelines, budgets, stakeholders, risks, and dependencies, they can benefit significantly from project management principles, whether or not the organization formally calls them projects.
This matters because many teams today are struggling with delays, recurring conflicts, weak coordination, cost overruns, low visibility, and inefficient use of resources. In many cases, these issues persist not because solutions are unavailable, but because the organization continues to manage project-like work as if it were merely routine operations. Without structured planning, clear roles, disciplined reporting, and decision-making processes, inefficiency becomes normal and underperformance becomes accepted.
Organizations need to take a closer look at their operations to identify the parts of their work that would benefit from the application of project management principles. This does not mean turning every task into bureaucracy. It means introducing the right level of structure to the right kinds of work. It means knowing when to apply tools for planning, scheduling, estimating, stakeholder engagement, risk management, monitoring and controlling, and performance reporting so that teams can deliver better results with less friction.
The gains can be substantial. When project management principles are applied appropriately, organizations improve execution, optimize resource utilization, reduce waste, strengthen accountability, increase collaboration, and make better use of time and money. The result is not just improved performance, but improved efficiency and profitability.
For organizations that are serious about working smarter, this review is no longer optional. It is an existential imperative and a practical step toward operational excellence.
At Emmanuel Udo and Partners, we help organizations assess their operations, identify areas where project management principles can add value, and design practical approaches for implementation. The goal is simple: better structure, better delivery, and better business outcomes. If your organization is experiencing delays, inefficiencies, or repeated coordination problems, it may be time to ask a basic question: are you managing project-like work as effectively as you should? The answer could make all the difference.
