Project prioritization, cleaner energy, and innovations—managing global projects in the energy sector involve
Project prioritization, cleaner energy, and innovations—managing global projects in the energy sector involves traveling through a road of regulatory requirements and project challenges. Yet, despite these complexities, Frederic Calderini, Product Owner of Harmony at TotalEnergies stays optimistic saying, "With our transformation into a multi-energy company, we are further expanding our range of activities, we aim to reduce our carbon emissions by 25% and our methane emissions by 80% by 2030.” No doubt, these objectives give a glimpse that the energy industry continues to face substantial growth, notably with renewables.
TotalEnergies, a leader in the global energy market, employs over 100,000 people worldwide. The company is currently dedicated to transitioning towards more sustainable energy practices, managing a broad portfolio that includes Oil & Gas, Solar, Wind, Biogas, Hydrogen, and other energies, including new molecules. It is why TotalEnergies is committed to continually improve its innovation of energy solutions across multiple continents throughout its portfolios.
This commitment led TotalEnergies to adopt Planisware, through a system named “Harmony” internally, designed to align with the objectives of its large-scale projects. But how did TotalEnergies conclude that a Project Portfolio Management tool could add value to its projects? The decision to implement a PPM solution was not made overnight, given the numerous decisions and challenges that needed to be identified and understood beforehand.
Customer and Resource Allocation Challenges
Initially, one of the biggest challenges faced was managing such a vast portfolio that needed to closely align with customer priorities, effectively allocate resources to strategic activities, and maintain schedules crucial due to significant investments and country-specific tax implications.
"In our industry, we must allocate our resources to the most strategic activities, and establish a consistent workload plan, adherence to project schedules is really critical because of the massive investments, often in the billions of dollars, and also because of the fiscal impact on the countries in which we operate." states Frederic Calderini.
That is why the company needed to conduct extensive research to find a flexible solution with a user-friendly interface, that can be adapted to their needs. Planisware was chosen to enable them to prioritize projects effectively and handle the flood of innovative ideas proposed within their teams and identify bottlenecks in specific specialties that needed reinforcement or subcontracting.
"Harmony (Planisware) is a digital solution in our strategy to efficiently manage our international projects," Calderini notes. "It allows us to deliver high-value projects on time and within budget, maximizing our global reach and impact."
TotalEnergies’ 4 Pillars of Successful Implementation
Nevertheless, change is never easy. That is why after determining that a project management solution, was no longer an option, but a requirement, the company embraced four pillars that facilitated this transformative process throughout their users during the implementation phase.
- Communication. A communication strategy was essential. Well before the launch, TotalEnergies developed a plan to inform all potential users about the new system, setting the stage of awareness for a smoother transition.
- Training. Recognizing the importance of user competence, TotalEnergies conducted extensive training for over 1,000 employees, utilizing training materials designed to maximize learning outcomes.
- Community. To foster a supportive user community, regular updates and insights have been shared through Yammer posts, beginning six weeks before the go-live. This initiative started with weekly posts, which later transitioned to bi-weekly, ensuring ongoing engagement and support was available for all users.
- Adoption. Finally, to further enhance adoption rates, TotalEnergies now hosts regular webinars focusing on Harmony's major features, coupled with periodic Q&A sessions to address specific themes. These are complemented by tailored workshops, which are adapted to the varying levels of maturity across different organizational entities.
2,300 Engineers Contribute to the Project Prioritization Initiative
Currently, with 2,300 engineers using Harmony across nine different sites in three countries, the platform has become integral to the ongoing digital transformation, where Frederic shares a quick look at the mechanics within Harmony.
"Services—what we refer to as activities—are primarily generated by leaders in Customer Lines. These leaders specify requests for generic resources at the entity level, which then populate the workload plans of technical line resource managers, who assign tasks to individuals by name all under one system."
The system supports around 350 Service Leaders and 250 Resource Managers, and 120 Budget Owners. Managers are better equipped to make quick, informed decisions, which help address any challenges before they escalate. The company has seen this in action to manage the 2025 budget to handle the budgetary and strategic construction cycle of the project portfolio.
“To build the 2025 budget, we have copied all the activities, what we call services, in the strategic portfolio module with the 2023 achievements and the hours planned for 2024. This greatly simplifies input and analysis for budget leaders, who, with the 2024 budget, have 3 sources of information to draw up their 2025 budget.
Then, once the 2025 budget has been validated by the COMEX, we copy the 2025 information into the service module, automatically creating the tasks and hours planned for 2025.”- Frederic Calderini
But it didn’t stop there. Planisware’s integration with HR and financial systems has further improved operations, reinforcing the ambition towards a better digital transformation journey. The implementation process, completed in six months, still goes through continuous improvements and adaptations. The platform is currently in its 11th Sprint, with new features being added every quarter, demonstrating a commitment to ongoing enhancements.
As Harmony continues to evolve, Frederic Calderini highlights the future of this initiative: "Our journey doesn't stop here. We plan to extend Harmony's functionality, incorporate GenAI to make life easier for our users, improve the quality of our data, enable better data querying, and continue to enhance our strategic portfolio management."
Curious on how Planisware can have an impact on your project management processes? Get in touch with our team.
