The Background
I am a student at the niche Infrastructure Development and Management MBA program at Pune’s SCMHRD. The program is a techno-commercial blend of core management domains and intrinsic infrastructure conceptualization and management knowledge. Before joining the program, I worked in Infrastructure Consulting at Jacobs Engineering, which at the time was ranked the best Design firm globally by Engineering News-Record. I was lucky enough to work on several iconic projects such as the Jamnagar J3 refinery in nearly 4 years with Jacobs as an engineer involved in greenfield and brownfield EPC projects. In 2019 Jacobs sold the ECR division to Worley in a $3.3 billion deal and I ended up working at Worley for 3 months before pursuing my MBA and coincidentally working there again as a summer intern in 2020.
Interview Prep:
Knowing Worley’s stature as the largest player in energy projects globally, I expected the interview to involve EPC/EPCm Project Management as a major focus area and brushed up on the latest news on projects being carried out in India, including the publicly acknowledged projects at Worley. I also read on Worley’s thrust into digital transformation and energy transformation and ensured I was up to date with the radically new programs being implemented at EPC companies all over the world as precursors to digital transformation. I rounded this off with a revision of the work done and results achieved in my time at Jacobs and Worley and a glance through PMBOK methodology and Project Management practices.
The Interview:
The actual internship project fortuitously turned out to be an exciting application of Digital Transformation in a complex infrastructure asset. The interview was carried out by Worley India’s domain experts in Digital Transformation and Integrated Solutions, the interviewers had diverse expertise in EPC projects spanning different infrastructure sectors. The interview involved testing my application of EPC knowledge and experience to a case study where I had to come up with a strategy to implement Digital Transformation in Project Management and Execution system at the target company to bring out the desired results.
After presenting my solution I had to defend and modify it as the panellist invoked real-life scenarios and use cases, at the end of which the solution was accepted and feedback was provided. After this, the interview revolved around my past work experience in EPC project management in Energy, Chemical and Resource (ECR) projects with the panel performing a deep dive into the technical aspects.
The Internship:
I was ecstatic to receive an opportunity to work on skunkworks program development at the global leader in energy projects. I was also excited that the project spanned all 3 verticals (Energy, Chemicals & Resources) in which Worley is involved. The Covid-19 Pandemic and subsequent lockdown threw an initial spanner in the works but with Worley moving the internship to the virtual domain the internship continued seamlessly. The actual project involved creating a roadmap for digital transformation implementation for a large mining-refining complex. It was a completely novel topic and the research involved diving into relatively less explored topics which were still novel in the field of project and asset management.
The palpable excitement of working on something ground-breaking and new that has not been tried before was present in everyone that I interacted with for the interview and internship, and it was infectious and soon I felt the same way. Receiving mentoring from subject matter experts on such novel and futuristic technologies and working on implementing futuristic transformational programs are unique experiences I will take away from this internship project.
The experience has opened me up to the dynamic and little-explored field of digital transformation in infrastructure and I look forward to taking part in the revolutionary new projects taking shape in this field based on my learnings and experience at Worley and the MBA IDM program at SCMHRD.
First-Year Program Learnings that aided in the internship.
The MBA IDM program is techno-commercial, energy and resources is a specialisation in the program and project execution and management is a major focus area applied across all specialisations. I had opted for a mix of project management and project finance specialisations across the domains of energy, urban infrastructure and transportation and that aided in cracking an interview for an ECR project company. I had also worked on a live project for India Smart Grid Forum that included Digital Ledger Technology and Blockchain which provided me with ample exposure to new technology development and large scale implementation, including the regulatory aspects.
Tips for 20-22 Batch.
To obtain internships in Project Management Companies, Energy companies or Digital Transformation enterprises ensure you have a strong grasp on Project Management including PMBOK and PMI methodologies, an understanding of energy generation-transmission-distribution across all sources, an understanding of non-conventional energy projects and an exposure to digital technologies such as Smart Contracting, Distributed Ledger Technology (Blockchain), Execution Systems and Project Dashboards.
