Leading Large-Scale Teams in High-Stakes Marine Projects

1. Introduction: Leadership Beyond the Drawing Board

In offshore oil & gas and renewable energy projects, leadership isn’t just about holding meetings or signing off designs. It’s about steering large, multidisciplinary teams through complex, high-risk environments where operational success is measured in safety, precision, and on-time delivery.

I’ve led fabrication and offshore installation teams for jackets, topsides, hull barges, subsea modules, and windfarm foundations for over 27 years. Some projects involved structures weighing more than 25,000 tons; others required orchestrating hundreds of specialists across fabrication yards, vessels, and offshore platforms.

The stakes in these environments are high—errors can cost millions, delays can derail entire campaigns, and safety failures can result in injury or worse. This article outlines the technical, procedural, and human leadership practices required to manage large-scale marine projects successfully.

2. The Complexity of Offshore Project Teams

Offshore projects are unique in that the project team is distributed across multiple environments:

• Onshore Fabrication Yards – Welders, fabricators, NDT technicians, coating teams, QC inspectors, planners.

• Offshore Installation Crews – Crane operators, riggers, barge foremen, marine spread supervisors.

• Engineering & Management – Structural engineers, marine engineers, project controls, HSE officers.

• Specialist Vendors – Pile driving contractors, subsea ROV teams, turbine technicians.

These teams often span multiple time zones and nationalities, requiring precise coordination to avoid bottlenecks.

3. Structuring Teams for Success

3.1 Core Principles:

• Clear Lines of Authority – Everyone must know the chain of command, especially offshore where decisions need to be made instantly.

• Functional Segmentation – Separate but interconnected teams for fabrication, load-out, transport, and installation.

• Interface Management – A dedicated coordinator to manage dependencies between disciplines (e.g., welding completion before coating, coating completion before load-out).

Industry Example:In a jacket fabrication project in Southeast Asia, introducing an Interface Manager reduced handover delays between welding and coating teams by 40%, accelerating the schedule by 2 weeks.

4. Communication Across Environments

In offshore projects, information is as critical as steel. Poor communication can lead to misaligned lift points, coating damage during transport, or unsafe working conditions.

Technical Communication Tools:

• Marine VHF & UHF Radio Protocols – For real-time coordination during lifts and pile driving.

• Daily Progress Reports (DPRs) – Consolidated updates from yard and offshore sites to the central project office.

• 3D Model Review Platforms – Allow offshore crews to visualize as-built vs. design before installation.

Best Practice:Use one single source of truth—whether it’s an ERP or a cloud-based project management tool—so all teams are aligned on the latest revision of drawings and procedures.

5. Safety Culture Across Large Teams

Safety leadership isn’t just enforcing PPE—it’s about embedding a mindset where every worker actively prevents incidents.

Key Safety Leadership Strategies:

• Visible Leadership: Senior leaders must be physically present in the yard and offshore to reinforce safety messages.

• Empowered Stop Work Authority (SWA): Every crew member, regardless of rank, has the authority to stop unsafe work.

• Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) Programs: Observations and feedback to encourage safe habits.

Standards Applied:

• ISO 45001 – Occupational health and safety management systems

• DNV-ST-N001 – Marine operations safety guidelines

  
  

6. Time Management & Critical Path Control

Marine projects operate within tight weather windows—especially during monsoon or hurricane seasons. Delays in one stage can cause months-long project slippage.

Tools & Techniques:

• Critical Path Method (CPM) for sequencing yard fabrication, load-out, and installation.

• Float Management: Building buffer time into offshore lifts for weather standby.

• Metocean Forecast Integration: Using 7- to 14-day forecasts to lock in installation schedules.

Example:For a 25,000-ton accommodation barge, critical path control avoided crane downtime costs of $250,000/day by adjusting installation to a short calm-weather window.

7. Human Factors – Fatigue, Morale, and Offshore Living

Even with perfect engineering, human fatigue can derail productivity and safety. Offshore shifts often run 12 hours, 7 days a week, for weeks on end.

Leadership Actions:

• Rotate high-concentration roles (e.g., crane operators) to prevent fatigue errors.

• Provide structured recreational breaks offshore.

• Ensure proper crew changeovers to avoid “handover gaps” in information.

  
  

8. Training, Mentoring, and Knowledge Transfer

One of the greatest leadership responsibilities is ensuring the next generation inherits both technical skills and safety culture.

Technical Training Areas:

• Rigging & Lifting Certifications (per LOLER and API RP 2D)

• Welding qualifications (per AWS D1.1 / ISO 9606)

• Offshore survival and HUET (Helicopter Underwater Escape Training)

Mentoring Practice:Pair experienced offshore supervisors with younger engineers during installation phases to accelerate learning while maintaining operational integrity.

9. Leadership in Renewables vs. Oil & Gas

While the leadership fundamentals are the same, renewable projects introduce higher repetition and tighter schedules—for example, installing 50 turbines in a single campaign.

Key Differences:

• Oil & Gas: Larger, one-off structures; longer lead times; higher topside complexity.

• Renewables: Smaller units but high volume; emphasis on logistics optimization.

In both cases, leadership requires maintaining consistent quality while adapting pace and resource allocation to the project type.

10. Conclusion: Leadership That Delivers Steel and Safety

Large-scale marine projects are built on three pillars: technical excellence, team coordination, and safety culture. Leaders who can integrate these elements consistently deliver projects that are on-time, incident-free, and built to last decades in harsh marine environments.

In my experience, the most successful leaders in offshore projects are not just managers—they are integrators of people, processes, and precision engineering. Steel may form the structure, but it is people who make the project stand.