A Potential Approach To Document Standardization Projects
The project to create the 2007 CAPL Operating Procedure introduced a web enabled distribution process. The process was replicated and refined in the 2015 projects to update the Operating Procedure and the CAPL Farmout & Royalty Procedure, the 2017 project to update to the CAPL Property Transfer Procedure and the project to create the 2018 PJVA-CAPL Pad Site Sharing Agreement.
In summary, this process model regards a project as being comprised of three overlapping phases - engagement, the creation of the document and “aftercare” to facilitate a transition to use. The foundation of this approach is recognition that “marketing” is critical to building engagement, optimizing the quality of the document through industry feedback and in seeing a transition to use in due course.
This approach sees a mass web enabled distribution to industry through CAPL and other stakeholder associations in at least three comment cycles. The process includes: (i) the verbatim presentation of comments the applicable Committee receives using company codes and the Committee’s response to each individual comment through a very transparent process; (ii) private discussions with commenting parties as appropriate to understand and respond to their comments optimally: and (iii) the provision to industry of a matrix of every material change relative to the prior industry document and the rationale for each such change when the initial draft, each subsequent draft and the final document are presented to industry. A rollout event at the beginning and the end of the project and an increased emphasis on the annotations and the presentation of a series of articles in the CAPL Negotiator are designed to facilitate industry’s transition to the new document.
Beth Swift-Hill worked on the drafting Subcommittee for the 2018 PJVA-CAPL Pad Site Sharing Agreement. She wrote this case study on the process approach used in that project because of the belief that it could be helpful to any future committee working on a similar project. It is included here with her permission.