Our Experiences

With the expansion of the oil & gas sector into new frontiers, and our growing commitment to developing increasing complex projects, the availability of highly-qualified professional staff has become of critical importance for Eni, as the management of operations, which is itself tied to the skills and knowledge of people and their motivation, has become a key factor for success.  

In recent years Eni has developed, and is today further expanding, special programmes in the field of knowledge management, in particular through the establishment of "Communities of Practice " – "virtual networks" of knowledge workers who share knowledge bases and work on similar processes and operations.

The purpose of these Communities of Practice is to draw out the "tacit knowledge " which community members have, so as to make it explicit and available to the organisation, by:

• focusing on the search for solutions to operating problems, especially in the technical field;
• turning the experience gained into a shared asset. The experience gained by Eni reveals that one of the key factors for the success of a knowledge management system lies achieving cultural change, which underpins the knowledge process and is built on three elements:
  
• motivation in people;
• learning, in particular so as to understand the mechanisms driving the model, and in order to carry out the requested behaviour;
• communication, to build the trust and co-operation necessary for initiatives to have success.

As a result, attention has been focused on special training activities, backed up by motivation initiatives and change management programmes.

Knowledge management has evolved from a simple tool for efficiency to an organisational response to the need for creativity and non-stop innovation in all business areas, capable of contributing in a concrete way to the value chain.

At the same time, Communities of Practice, understood as "networks" of knowledge workers, are the organisational response to the need for an organisation, characterised by high levels of interaction and participation.