Oil and gas giant Shell crowned the winners of its Project Process Hackathon, an internal competition designed to inspire new approaches to process optimization within the organization.
More than 170 participants took part in the three-week long hackathon, with team Taskformers emerging victorious with its solution Contract Extension Consolidation.
“This experience proves how citizen development with Microsoft Power Platform Solutions can quickly transform repetitive project processes into smart, automated workflows – making life easier for everyone in project management,” said Jignesh Khakhriya, senior technical consultant at Shell.
Thinking beyond traditional processes
The challenge pushed participants to think beyond traditional processes and leverage Microsoft Power Platform to build a low-code, scalable solution that:
- Automates manual contract extension requests.
- Provides real-time visibility and tracking.
- Streamlines approvals and reduces processing time significantly.
“What made this win even more special was receiving the award from Shashaank Garimella, a true moment of achievement and inspiration,” said Khakhriya. “A big thank you to the judges for their valuable feedback, mentors for guiding us and the organizing team for creating such a collaborative and fun innovation platform.”
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Shell’s citizen development program enhances business operations
Shell boasts an impressive track record of enhancing business operations through internal programs and initiatives. A prime example is the company’s global citizen development training program “do it yourself” (DIY).
The DIY program embraces the possibility that everyone, wherever they sit in the organization, can improve operations by developing software applications for their daily processes. It aims to deliver significant and rapid cost savings while supporting the democratization of digital skills among staff, unlocking untapped value with digital solutions.
“The program helps to empower every employee to utilize work processes, improving productivity, increasing agility and creating more value for customers,” said May Linn Liao Amorelli, IT projects business analyst at Shell.
An important part of Shell’s DIY program are its hackathon events. These are free, business-focused challenges designed to give citizen developers hands-on experience, develop and showcase skills and even win prizes.
Interestingly, the decision of who takes part in the DIY program is not one led by seniors at Shell. Instead, it is the workers themselves who choose whether or not to participate, based on their needs and ambitions for improving and automating processes.
“IT cannot address every issue or problem of the business alone. “So, we need more developers – it’s essential to have this,” May said.