Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas Podcast Artwork

Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas

The Five Lessons of Digital and AI Deployment

Host: Geoffrey Cann • Duration: 32 minutes • Published: August 27, 2025

Listen on your preferred platform:

Apple Podcasts Spotify Overcast

TL;DR

The Bottom Line: Digital transformation in energy requires five critical lessons: storytelling trumps spreadsheets for change management, people matter more than technology, start small and prove value before scaling, vendors are strategic partners not just suppliers, and data is the real currency that accelerates everything once properly structured.

Key Insight: Most digital transformations fail not because of bad technology, but because of poor change management and rushing past foundational data work.

Executive Summary

Key insights from my conversation with Geoffrey Cann on successful digital transformation in energy:

This 32-minute conversation explores why oil and gas companies have invested heavily in digital technologies but too many efforts fall short in value delivery. Drawing from my 9 years of digital transformation experience in upstream oil and gas, I share practical lessons on storytelling, people management, and data strategy.

Key Topics & Timestamps

“I think being able to articulate a story, a why around why you’re doing that change really helps. If you can’t articulate the strategy properly in your story, then the strategy is not as valuable as when it’s ultimately delivered.”

“It’s not about the tech, it’s about the people. Because what you find is they will bring their peers along on the journey as they start to then move into that tech evangelist space.”

“Once I had that data foundation, everything beyond that point was significantly accelerated. Data is the real currency—you’re going to have to invest and accumulate good quality data if you expect to get any value out of your digital transformation agenda.”

My Additional Thoughts

The oil and gas industry’s digital transformation journey offers valuable lessons for leaders across all sectors. While energy companies have made significant investments in new technologies, the gap between investment and value delivery reveals fundamental challenges that extend far beyond technology selection.

Why Storytelling Matters in Technical Environments Engineers are naturally skeptical—they want proof, not promises. But I’ve learned that even the most analytical minds respond to compelling narratives about why change is necessary. When rolling out Microsoft Teams globally, we didn’t lead with feature lists. We painted a picture of scattered communications, lost files, and frustrated colleagues—then positioned Teams as the hero that would solve these daily frustrations.

The Multiplier Effect of Peer Influence The most powerful advocates aren’t executives or change managers—they’re the respected practitioners who initially resisted but became converts. When a seasoned engineer tells their peers, “This actually makes my job easier,” that carries more weight than any PowerPoint presentation. I’ve seen skeptics become evangelists who then bring entire teams along on the transformation journey.

Data Investment as Strategic Foundation The pressure to show quick wins often leads companies to skip proper data foundation work. But I’ve learned that two years spent cleaning and structuring data pays dividends for decades. Every subsequent AI deployment, analytics project, and digital initiative builds on that foundation—making the initial investment the most valuable transformation work you can do.

If you found this conversation valuable, you might also be interested in:

Full Transcript

David Moore [00:00:00]: Storytelling is as important as the strategy itself. Basically, people don’t really buy into spreadsheets and presentations. You need to frame that transformation in a human terms, bring people along on the journey. Being able to articulate a story, a why around, why you’re doing that change really, really helps.

Geoffrey Cann [00:00:21]: Welcome to Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas with Jeffrey Cam, a podcast for industry professionals who are transforming the industry using digital. I’m Jeffrey and in this show we look at various digital innovations that help lower costs, improve productivity and reduce emissions. Welcome back to Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas. One of the great privileges of this podcasting role is that I get to meet really interesting people doing really interesting work. And on today’s episode I have the pleasure to interview David Moore, who is a digital advisor and AI delivery lead. We’re going to talk through the things that David has learned that he wish he had known before he started out on the journey of being an AI delivery lead. Things that have in time proven to be the critical and most important things if you ever wanted to do AI deployment, the critical and most important things you might want to take on board before you even get started. David, welcome to Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas.

David Moore [00:01:29]: Thanks Jeff. Good to be here.

Geoffrey Cann [00:01:31]: Tell me a bit about your background. I know you got an accent that suggests you’re from away, but as Canadians would say. But you’re based in Texas, correct?

David Moore [00:01:42]: Yes, my background, I have a PhD in a mechanical engineering field but AI related topic there joined the oil field after that. So I’ve kind of done both the seller and the, and the buyer side being in a service company and also a non operator side in the upstream side of the business. And for the past nine years I’ve been working on digital transformation and AI.

Geoffrey Cann [00:02:08]: What are the kinds of projects that you’ve, you’ve had a chance to, to tackle in that time frame?

David Moore [00:02:14]: Everything from digital transformation, from things like Microsoft Teams deployments across the business to leveraging AI on integrated activity planning. So the full gamut, yeah, I get to see that.

Geoffrey Cann [00:02:30]: From soup to nuts if you like. Bottom to top foundation to top of value chain, I think. So these are the top five things you’ve learned from doing all of this. Let’s start with number one. What if you had to kind of share your insights with others? What’s the number one thing you would tell people they gotta, you know, if they’re following your role, what, what should they take on board?

David Moore [00:02:51]: Yeah, I think as somebody transitioned from being a, an engineer into digital transformation, probably the biggest lesson I learned was Storytelling is as important as the strategy itself. Basically, people don’t really buy into spreadsheets and presentations. They need to. You need to frame that transformation in a human terms, bring people along on the journey.

Geoffrey Cann [00:03:15]: Well, I wouldn’t, I would think because you’re dealing mostly with the engineering world inside digital transformation in oil and gas and engineering heavy world. I would have thought that the industrial logic would be more sway. But you’re, you’re saying storytelling actually is more powerful. What, What? Tell me, give me an example of what you mean by that.

David Moore [00:03:34]: Yeah, for the engineering community, yes, I understand what you’re saying with the numbers, but change inherently humans don’t like change. So I think being able to articulate a story, a why around why you’re doing that change really help. So an example would be the Microsoft Teams deployment way back when it was first being deployed across the globe for various industries and oil and gas in particular. You have to basically set the scene, what it is, what is the story that you’re trying to explain. So hey, we’re trying to move from Ike, for example, you’re trying to tell the villain of that story, why are you doing it? Scattered chats, file sharing, missed context, et cetera. Try and set that scene of urgency as to why we need to make the change and then articulate your plan and then validate that with real world examples and then basically bring your customer along on that journey, ask them what they need to make that transformation easier and would get buy in. So it’s kind of walking through that story journey with them.

Geoffrey Cann [00:04:39]: Are engineers naturally good storytellers or is this something you have to go away and you spent a bit of time thinking about that.

David Moore [00:04:46]: That was probably one of the biggest learnings for me, is moving from that engineer mindset to being able to articulate a story and get buy in with a community for change.

Geoffrey Cann [00:04:56]: Oh, it’s fascinating. Who’s the villain in your team? Skype kind of shift. Who’s the villain here? Is it Skype?

David Moore [00:05:04]: Yeah, I guess there’s no particular individual, but the villain here was the scatter charts. That clunky file sharing. You missed context because I, you know, Skype didn’t have a persistent chat capability at the time. And then you’re trying to articulate that we’re moving into that digital era where we’re going to have these other systems that we want to be able to tie in so that as a customer you don’t have to go to multiple different systems. The information should come to you in your central hub of which Teams was going to be that central hub.

Geoffrey Cann [00:05:32]: That’s interesting. So you’re painting the hero here is going to be your future state or is it the individual who’s going to benefit from the value that’s delivered by that future state? How do you, how do you think about that?

David Moore [00:05:46]: I think the hero is almost a combination of the two.

Geoffrey Cann [00:05:48]: Yeah. Yep.

David Moore [00:05:50]: The hero state, the outcome is probably the hero here. And then you’re trying to walk people through that thought process of hey, we have a problem. This is the villain. Here’s my urgency almost to take action. Here’s why I want to do this change.

Geoffrey Cann [00:06:05]: Yeah.

David Moore [00:06:05]: And here’s the reward. I’m going to get out the back of it and then we’re going to partner together to make that a reality.

Geoffrey Cann [00:06:11]: I think it’s very interesting thought is that for. For people who are trying to drive change is that they actually go and look at things like great movies and great storytellers to learn from that and bring that to bear on the. The problem at hand. I think that’s really powerful idea.

David Moore [00:06:28]: Yep. No, agreed.

Geoffrey Cann [00:06:31]: All right, Great story. And just as important as strategy, I think is the kind of, the kind of key takeaway. If you can’t articulate the strategy properly in your story, then the strategy is not as valuable as when it’s ultimately delivered. I’m a big believer in storytelling and relaying. Can you share an example? I mean, you talk about teams anytime for AI world because AI is particularly tricky. You got to get people to trust things that they. That are mysterious and being done in a bit of a black box. Anything like that come to mind?

David Moore [00:07:04]: Yeah, I mean in kind of the integrated activity planning space. A similar thing, a very manual process that involves a lot of people working a lot of hours to manually manipulate a plan. And so yeah, similar, similar process of walking through a story. Obviously the villain there is the amount of hours that are spent on a. On a quarterly cadence to create those plans. Where if you leverage an AI tool to help you optimize that plan, then you can save those people significant amount of time so they can then refocus their time on. Instead of what does the plan look like running scenarios. What if this, what if that. That’s where they can add significantly more value and it’s more fulfilling for them, to be honest, working in that space.

Geoffrey Cann [00:07:54]: Yeah, I totally agree. You take a senior engineer and say, I’m going to remove from your day to day this drudgery of data entry and manipulation, spreadsheet jockeying and the like and give you the, the power to go. Let me talk. Think about the future. I think that’s a very, should be very motivating, I would think. Let’s turn to insight number two. Second thing you’ve learned a second tip you would give people.

David Moore [00:08:17]: Yeah, I think it’s not about the technology, it’s about the people. So don’t. It shouldn’t just be focused on rolling out the shiny tools. The real challenge is how do you bring those people along. Part of that rolls into the storytelling we just, we just spoke about.

Geoffrey Cann [00:08:32]: Yeah, of course.

David Moore [00:08:33]: But it’s building that culture, the trust and changing, you know, helping you, the adoption. And it’s more than just features and capabilities in a platform or a tool. I like to call it customer centricity.

Geoffrey Cann [00:08:47]: Can you share an example of where it’s worked really well? And then of course, the collary where you focus on the tech first and not the people and it’s a disaster.

David Moore [00:08:57]: Yeah, I think an example of where it worked really well. Yeah, we were looking at a connected worker platform where I say connected worker. It’s digitizing standard procedures and allowing people to execute on digitized standard procedures. And I spent significant amounts of time in the field trying to understand people’s real world problems and then look at, trying to map out kind of my stakeholders and where they fall on being a digital leader or evangelist and a digital technical skeptic and then taking all those problems I’ve seen and start to tackle them in order of, on that axis of focusing on my people that are close to tech evangelists but not quite, maybe a little bit skeptical. Because what you find is they will bring their peers along on the journey as they start to then move into that tech evangelist space. So that was really successful. And then having a specific example of somebody I had on the tech skeptic side for that project and by the.

Geoffrey Cann [00:10:04]: End of that project.

David Moore [00:10:07]: Yeah, that person laid out in no uncertain terms that they would not, be, would not be changing. When we were at day zero and by the end as we’ve gone through that process and I actually observed a particular challenge that individual had by the end of it, as their peers had come along and then I was delivering something that solved their problem, that’s when I saw the smile on the face and acceptance of, hey, yeah, actually this is useful to me. Yeah, that kind of cultural shift.

Geoffrey Cann [00:10:37]: Yeah, skeptic converted. Once they’re a skeptic, do they ever truly become evangelists or what if you confront them with the next problem, do they regress back to being Skeptic or is it a, is this like a human nature kind of thing? You know, once a skeptic, always a skeptic.

David Moore [00:10:53]: I don’t think so. I think people can be, can move from skeptics too. I don’t know if I’d go all the way to evangelist, but I’ve had over several projects, people that I would have put in the skeptic bucket, but by the end have openly said, and I quote, you can pry this from my cold, dead hands. So that’s a big change.

Geoffrey Cann [00:11:12]: That’s a big change. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I’ve heard, I have heard that taking teams just as one example, a bad teams deployment can be disastrous for frontline teams if they can’t access their content. Similarly though, a great team’s deployment, once it’s out, you cannot pull it out like they will. They just, they cling to it because they built their world around it and they’ve saved so much time. So if you get it right, it is right. Yeah, there’s going to be some people though. I mean even. Yeah, it’s not about the tech, it’s about the people. There’s going to be some people though, that, you know what I mean, you’re never going to move them around. What, what, what do you do there? Do you sideline them? Do you transfer them? Do you let them go? What’s, what’s the right plan there?

David Moore [00:11:55]: Yeah, I’d say it’s fairly rare to have individuals that you guess you could turn them almost saboteurs. Right. They, they almost spend their day instead of sort of how, instead of working on how could this actually help them and the team, they would rather use that time to influence peers to not use it, not use at all.

Geoffrey Cann [00:12:17]: Yeah.

David Moore [00:12:18]: And I think an organization needs to look at that and, and work with those people to understand like, hey, why, and encourage them to, to be part of the conversation and the journey because their insight is probably very valuable. But I, I do think there will be some people sometimes that are just never going to change. And at that point I would say probably from a, from a business perspective, it is probably better to move them somewhere else or.

Geoffrey Cann [00:12:44]: Yeah. Get them out of the way. And in my book, I actually had one oil executive say to me that there’s there’s 10, 10% of your, your, your target out there are going to be your evangelists. You don’t have to do anything with them. They’ll just, they’ll just run with it. Just say, hey, we’re laying out, we’re Introducing this new agentic AI solution that will automatically prioritize your preventative maintenance for you. And they’re like, I want it. I need no encouragement. And there’ll be 10% who will actively sabotage that effort. And he said, you need to identify the saboteurs and move them on because otherwise all of your energies are thwarted.

David Moore [00:13:19]: So, and I think that’s why, as I mentioned earlier, around knowing, understanding that scale of your stakeholders, who’s your evangelist, who’s your skeptics, and then focusing on peers that are on that, on that scale, the next level on. So if I have a tech skeptic, well, who’s their peer that they, they value as an individual in the organization for that, for their role and try and influence that peer? Because peer pressure is a beautiful thing. It does bring people along on the journey. So I think that’s very powerful to focus on that.

Geoffrey Cann [00:13:49]: I think it does. Your point earlier about sussing out where people are on the spectrum, who are the influencers, who are the laggards, who are the evangelists, who are the. I’ll just go with the flow. If you could actually segment your people by that, I think probably you might agree with this. You can tell pretty quickly when you meet with them where they stand.

David Moore [00:14:11]: Absolutely, yeah. Very few people can hide, hide their thoughts on.

Geoffrey Cann [00:14:16]: Hide their stripes. Yeah. The analogy I use is the hedgehog. When you’re trying to drive chain hedgehogs, very cute creature. But in their garden there can be a disaster. And when they’re threatened, they curl into a ball, quills out and very hard to approach. And so I, I always remind people, find your head hedgehogs and clear them out because they’re going to ruin your garden. All right, tip number three. What do you do? What do you do now? So you’ve, you’ve, you’re focusing on the people. You’ve got your stories organized. Now what, what’s your next tip?

David Moore [00:14:49]: Yeah, I think it’s really important to start small, prove value, and then, and then scale from there. I think there’s a tendency to want to go for a big bang approach. You have a tool, a platform, whatever it may be, and you want to just kind of big bang approach that across the business. I think that leads to a number of challenges.

Geoffrey Cann [00:15:10]: Right.

David Moore [00:15:10]: Everything from basically firefighting, if there’s bugs or challenges that maybe you didn’t foresee all the way through to just having enough bandwidth to support people properly. And when you get into those kind of situations, you start to leave negative sentiment with people. And negative sentiment is really hard to recover from. So start small pilots cheap, fast, focus on proving that actual value to people and then once you have those kind of wins, scale from there, once you’ve built a little bit of credibility as well.

Geoffrey Cann [00:15:41]: I, I get the idea of starting small. It’s something I advocate regularly, but who would, who advocates for go big all the time? Where does that start? Certainly not frontline.

David Moore [00:15:52]: No, I think typically that’s usually a leadership driven stance of hey, we’re paying for a platform, we see a great idea, we want to get that to the hands of everybody. And I don’t think it comes from a misplaced perspective, but it’s just the reality of digital deployments and adoption. It’s not as simple as just click a button and everybody’s suddenly using an application. That whole change management piece. And I don’t think people, especially in our industry, appreciate how difficult change management can be with these things.

Geoffrey Cann [00:16:25]: I think there’s a great sort of theme there for the executive leadership and managers and supervisors in oil and gas, which is it’s okay and probably the smarter way to start small, find the value. Now, when you say start small, how do you decide where to start? Do you look for friendlies or unfriendlies? What’s the, what tactic do you apply there?

David Moore [00:16:47]: Yeah, so, and it depends what kind of part the business you’re working in. Downstream, upstream, for example. Upstream, you maybe pick a friendly rig, for example, that has some of those tech evangelists or close to on there and are willing to work with you. Understand that it’s not maybe a fully baked or it’s new and are willing to give you feedback and accept some of the roughness as you start. So usually start with a single installation. Once you’ve kind of proven the value there, people are happy. You maybe go to a second installation. I think once you get to a second or a third installation and everything is looking good. I think there’s very little apart from maybe some of the complexities to do with local regulations. If you’re going global, that really prohibit kind of going big after that.

Geoffrey Cann [00:17:36]: But now do you plan that enterprise from the very start? I know when you start small, are you thinking about, hey, I’m going to eventually if I’m successful, this is going to have to roll out. Are you scheming on that at the time, even when you’re doing start small?

David Moore [00:17:50]: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. You’re looking at everything from country data requirements through to maybe cultural sensitivities in global regions. So you’re looking at all of that and you’re already having that plan on paper ready for when you expand.

Geoffrey Cann [00:18:05]: It’s probably a message for say that rig manager, you’re doing your work with a friendly. You see, you whisper in their ear, hey, down the track this might become somewhat, I might need you to go and champion this. Right. So you can get others on board. I suppose that’s another kind of message. Can you share an example of one where you did this like a little back to your storytelling example or your storytelling tip. Tell me your story.

David Moore [00:18:31]: Yeah, again, I can go back to that connected worker example from before. We were starting that in. Well, what I thought was going to be a single. In fact, this is actually an interesting conundrum. I thought I was starting on a single rig. What I didn’t foresee is people move around and so when people have a tool, they like a tool, they want to take the tool to the next place that they go. And so yeah, we were starting to see this space, natural spread of the tool uncontrolled because I was, we were still focusing on that single installation. And then obviously people transfer countries. Right. And so you get leadership turning up and, and people, some people are using it, some people aren’t. And it’s confusing messages. So yeah, when that we’re, we’re in that situation. The adoption was a very low kind of in the 30% region for the tool. Took a pause and a step back at that point refocused on doubling down on those individual kind of evangelist units. And within about I think six to nine months we, we’d taken the adoption from a percent up to 90 plus percent. Yeah.

Geoffrey Cann [00:19:40]: Getting to scale is a huge problem for tech entrepreneurs in, in oil and gas because they don’t, they don’t think about this problem in this fashion the way you’re doing because you happen to be on in this instance buy side, you’re actually deploying it.

David Moore [00:19:55]: Yeah. I think the other thing is when people think about doing Big Bang rollouts, they think they’re getting from A to B the quickest. Maybe it’s a bit counterintuitive, but actually doing that slower approach and getting things right and then expanding, you can potentially get to point B quicker because you’re eliminating a lot of the headaches that you can have around bad perceptions, data issues, bugs, the list goes on. So don’t see focusing on a narrow focus at the beginning as slowing you down. It’s not, it’s actually potentially going to help you speed up further down the line.

Geoffrey Cann [00:20:27]: One problem entrepreneurs often share with me is that they get stuck in pilot hell. They’re on a treadmill just doing a pilot at one site and they can never seem to break out of it. Like, like this is, it’s, it’s a question I think that maybe you may have seen in your start small plan but show your value then scale. How do you get out of that pilot cycle and get into real deployment?

David Moore [00:20:50]: Yeah, a couple of things. I mean I feel like if you’re stuck in pilot hell with a single site or a single unit, are you really providing value? I would say a number of the pilots that I’ve been involved with, usually if they’re successful, that site is raving about it, business connects and it’s almost being pulled from your hands quicker than you could deliver it. So the question would be is it really delivering the value that you think it is? The other one was more naturally I would be lining up my second and third friendly sites ahead of time when Audi have engaged them and had them monitoring the first POC site. Right. So that I could quickly expand to the second and the third. Yeah, gets a bit of critical mass especially if you’re adding value to appear on people’s radar of hey, this is now on two or three sites and this is the value it’s delivering. It helps you get beyond that POC lock in. I think.

Geoffrey Cann [00:21:44]: Yeah, you’ll also get more, more sort of managerial visibility to it. People be talking about it and sharing it at their end. Like I know in a lot of, a lot of big oil Companies will have AGMs for internal people only. They’ll pull all their petroleum engineers together and have a show and tell about who’s doing what. You clearly want your, your project to be one of those show and tell projects because everyone will hear about it.

David Moore [00:22:07]: The other thing I’d say on, on POC lock in is it’s really valuable to have off ramps in product projects. Don’t, don’t be scared to, you know, have an exit and just say hey, this, this didn’t work. Rather than trying to keep yourself in this perpetual POC and it’s not going anywhere. Again, is it really adding value? Why is it not expanding? Have an off ramp to say it’s acceptable to say, yeah, maybe now is not the right time for this particular solution. Yeah, I mean I, I, I, I won’t go into the solution itself but I had a, I was given an example the other day of a solution I did in 2019. Didn’t really take flight, didn’t scale and now here we are in 2025 and it’s now back on the agenda and scaling. So sometimes things just need to go on a shelf and maybe come off the shelf at a later date.

Geoffrey Cann [00:22:49]: Yeah. When conditions change or improve or technology advances or what have you. And I could absolutely see that some early stage AI attempts prior to the large language models would have really struggled, but now they’re probably much faster and easier and create more value. Let’s, let’s go to number four. What’s your fourth key tip?

David Moore [00:23:11]: Yeah, I think your, your vendors can be your secret weapon in the delivery space here.

Geoffrey Cann [00:23:18]: That’s counterintuitive because sometimes their goals are not the same as yours.

David Moore [00:23:23]: Right.

Geoffrey Cann [00:23:23]: They’re trying to get sales revenue. And so how do you see them as a secret weapon?

David Moore [00:23:30]: I mean, I would probably argue that those goals are somewhat aligned. If you want sales revenue, your, your platform has to be successful and has to get great feedback. Right. In the industry, peers talk about what works well and what doesn’t. So it’s, it’s, it’s in their better interest to be a valuable partner. But I think what we tend to struggle with is relying on these entities for their expertise. I think it’s really important that we’re not an expert in everything as an industry. We’re certainly not an expert in software and AI, let’s be honest. Right. So really relying on them for their expertise, helping them, I mean, they help validate if what you’re thinking is correct or not. And number of times I’ve maybe had a harebrained idea and a vendor’s told me that’s no, it’s really not great. It’s made me think twice and pivot. And then if there’s an idea I’m trying to get to, they can help you work a solution through. This may be more well thought out. So everything from that kind of the strategy, the delivery side all the way through to just being a good partner in terms of if there’s an issue with a solution, they get it fixed really quickly and get that pushed out to your people. Can be as simple as a patch. A rig is having an issue with something, gets reported and it’s turned around within 24 hours because that buys so much good favor with the end customer and it gives that great user experience. Customer centric.

Geoffrey Cann [00:25:01]: Yeah. It shows that high responsiveness actually is a big factor in building trust and confidence in solutions. People feel their voices are being heard and they’ll act on it. The idea of the vendor as a weapon, I think is a really important insight in My case, I remember rolling out software and discovering that some critical technology I really needed to work did not work. And the vendor took it on themselves to roll it into what they called their critical care facility. And it got the highest possible attention because they knew that if they didn’t get it right, the entire deployment was going to be at risk and then the brand impact would be so high. So they took it very seriously. So I share your point of view. If you collaborate more tightly with vendors, you know, you can keep them at arm’s length and say, hey, this is my business, that’s your business. Keep them at arm’s length. But if you collaborate with them, do you get a better, like a, like, like say you’re, say you’re co developing with them. Lots of companies might entertain this. Do you get a better outcome when you do that?

David Moore [00:26:08]: I think you do. I think you, you also need to be cautious that you’re not creating a gold plated solution just for your specific company. So I think that’s always important and that’s, that’s kind of where that vendor relationship comes in. They should always be pushing back to you to say no, that’s a use specific thing, not a, an industry kind of view. And they, they work with other, other companies and companies. So, so, but I, I, you know, I have seen examples where you know, partnering with a vendor, you’re able to deliver something in a very short space of time. For example data model and how you interface with that data model, where you look at other internally built solutions, shall we say, where it kind of hasn’t gone to market to work with a vendor and they’ve taken multiple years more. So I think getting beyond that, we know best or we can do better and actually partnering with experts can significantly shorten your time to delivery and give you a better end outcome.

Geoffrey Cann [00:27:12]: Yeah, I completely agree. Let’s turn to your final and top five tip of things that you wish you known before you started. What’s number five?

David Moore [00:27:23]: Yeah, this one’s a hot one for everything from digital transformation through to especially now. But data is the real currency I think is the, is the, is the tip. It’s going through the digital transformation work. I, I’ve been on data is really the foundation to build upon. I had had issues or challenges again when we, when we talked about start small and wanting to do that big bang is always that pressure to get things pushed out. Yeah, I took a particularly long time with some, some of the work I did probably 24 plus months to build that data foundation. But Once I had that data foundation, everything beyond that point was significantly accelerated. And I’ve seen many examples across many companies where there was a rush to get things out. And many years later, they’re coming back and they’re fixing things with the data model or the data quality just protracts out how long you spend delivering these transformations.

Geoffrey Cann [00:28:23]: Yeah. I’d often characterize this data as almost the new oil. But I like your point about data being a currency, because one part of me says yes, and I might be able to monetize and sell my data. So that makes a kind of currency. Bitcoin is a great example of pure data being a currency. But what you’re sharing here is, is that data is the, is the coin that you require. You’re going to have to invest and, and accumulate good quality data if you expect to get any value out of your digital transformation agenda. Because it’s, it is the thing that makes it all work.

David Moore [00:29:00]: Absolutely, yes.

Geoffrey Cann [00:29:02]: And really powerful point. A bit like another analogy, I suppose, is building construction. You’re going to spend a lot of time digging a big hole, showing no value. What’s the story you tell your, your sponsors when you say, hey, I know you want this drone to be able to fly around the plant and give you connect up to your SAP platform and your work orders and so on? What’s the story you tell them when you say, yeah, but I’m going to take two years to clean up the data first.

David Moore [00:29:27]: That one was one that caught me out, shall I say, in my career. It was a very challenging conversation when that, that came up, I’m sure it was room and, you know, hey, here we are two years later and you, you know, I still don’t see anything out in the business again. It goes back to that storytelling piece, I think, you know, explaining to an executive what that bigger picture is in terms of, you know, hey, this is, this is the problem we set out to solve. It could be everything from, you know, fully digitizing, well, delivery, whatever it may be.

Geoffrey Cann [00:29:58]: Yep.

David Moore [00:29:59]: And then, you know, the villain. Right. Here’s the challenges with the data and the issues that we’ve had. Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah. And then, then here’s the plan. And here’s where I need your support for the plan. Yeah, yeah. So was in a very difficult situation and just had to redirect kind of like the, you know, turn it around and say, hey, here’s the solution I need, but it’s going to take this long. And here’s where I need your input. Here’s where I need your support. Here’s what this is going to enable. I don’t have any secret sauce for that one. That’s always a challenge.

Geoffrey Cann [00:30:32]: It is. But I think the point is if you skirt it and pretend it doesn’t exist and don’t talk about it, it’s not part of your story. You are going to set yourself up for failure. There’s something you’re going to have to tackle that you’re going to have to invest in, I think.

David Moore [00:30:46]: And that was through my first ever digital transformation and I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I think since then, as I approach these things, I’m more transparent with that story at the beginning because I now I understand. So I think when people understand the story from the get go, they don’t feel like they’re being caught by surprise when their boss or boss’s boss is asking, well, where is this? They can articulate why and why it’s taken so long. But so yeah, yeah, show me the money.

Geoffrey Cann [00:31:17]: Right. It’s over there. That’s going to take us a bit to get there, but when we get there, there’s a heck of a lot of will show up in ways you can’t even imagine. David, this has been a fascinating conversation. Top five things you wish you had known before you started a career in digital transformation and AI. And I appreciate you coming on the podcast to share those with us today. Thank you so much.

David Moore [00:31:37]: No, thank you for having me.

Geoffrey Cann [00:31:39]: Look for David’s contacts in the show notes and you want to talk to somebody really knows how to do this and has been through the front line. David’s your guy. And I will return in a week’s time with another episode. Bye for now. Thanks again for listening to this episode of Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas. The podcast returns in a week with another episode, so stay tuned.

Want more insights on AI strategy and digital transformation? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter for analysis that 500+ technology leaders trust.