SI Series, Part 5: Competing requirements: The integration trap

Every oil and gas system integration starts the same way. Get Land, Accounting, Operations, and IT in a room. Capture everyone's requirements. Build consensus. Move forward with unified support.

Here's the problem: unified support often creates unified failure.

The Requirements Collision

Your Land department needs real-time lease status updates to handle expiring deadlines. Accounting demands month-end close capabilities with full audit trails. Operations wants field-level production data accessible on mobile devices. IT requires enterprise security and scalability.

Everyone's needs sound reasonable. The fatal mistake is assuming you can build one system that optimizes for all of them.

What actually happens:

• Land gets "real-time" updates that take 15 minutes to refresh because the system is processing detailed accounting reconciliations
• Accounting gets comprehensive audit trails that slow down every transaction Operations needs in the field
• Operations gets mobile access to data that's buried under security layers that make it practically unusable

The Dashboard Dilemma

C-suite executives want clean dashboards showing key metrics: daily production, revenue per well, lease expiration alerts. Finance teams need sophisticated analytics: variance reporting, allocation algorithms, complex accrual calculations.

The compromise solution tries to serve both: "executive dashboards" with drill-down capabilities to detailed financial analytics.

The result: Dashboards too slow for executives, analytics too limited for finance teams. Both groups abandon the system.

Why Land & Accounting Don't Mix

Consider lease management workflows. Land administration needs rapid lease entry with minimal validation for time-sensitive deals. Accounting requires comprehensive data validation, proper coding, and integration with revenue systems.

The "integrated solution" creates configurable validation rules and optional detailed fields.

What you get: A system too complex for efficient land transactions, not rigorous enough for accounting confidence. Land deals get delayed by unnecessary validation steps. Accounting questions data quality because validation is optional.

The Alternative Approach

Stop trying to make everyone equally happy. Start with honest conversations about what each department actually needs to accomplish.

Land Operations: Fast access to critical lease information and deadline management
Accounting: Accurate financial data with proper controls and audit capabilities
Operations: Field-accessible production data for immediate decision-making

The key insight: These aren't just different features. They're different operational philosophies that require different system architectures.

Making Integration Work

Successful oil and gas integrations make conscious choices about primary and secondary users. They design systems that excel at their core purpose while gracefully handling other needs.

Primary land system optimized for speed and deadline management, with accounting integration points
Primary accounting system optimized for controls and reporting, with operational data feeds
Operational dashboards optimized for field use, with links to detailed systems when needed

The goal isn't consensus. It's creating systems that support your business effectively, even when that requires difficult trade-offs about who gets optimized functionality and who gets "good enough" integration.

The integration projects that succeed don't eliminate competing requirements. They acknowledge them upfront and make strategic choices about which requirements drive system architecture and which ones are accommodated through integration points.

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If you’re planning an integration and want a partner who brings both competence and candor, schedule a consultation with us.