One. Always look for new information in the areas of oil and gas industry legal issues. Save as favorites websites such as www.oilandgaslawyerblog.com, http://blog.evaluateenergy.com/list-of-u-s-oil-gas-companies, in addition to www.oilpatchpress.com. Just knowing enough and doing enough to keep your boss happy is not what will matter when raise, promotion or layoff time comes.
Two. Network with other analysts and ask what new company policies their companies are implementing. Learn how other analysts are doing their work according to their company’s policies. Compare their policies on lease maintenance or division order ownership transfers. Laws are always changing and you might learn something that you can go back to ask your inhouse legal counsel about—maybe your employer should be doing that, also. Talk about database systems with other analysts, especially those who use the same brand of database that you do. Trust me, their company will be using it differently than your company. Knowledge, even broad knowledge, of several land and accounting database systems give an edge when looking for a job.
Three. Be on the lookout for better workflow procedures as you do your work. As you are doing a particular task, regardless of what it is, ask yourself “Is there a better way to do this? Can any of the steps involved in this task be eliminated? Can any of the steps involved be revised so they can be done faster?” When you find tasks that can be improved, talk to your supervisor about it and ask if you can test out the new way to see if it works. Most supervisors welcome improvements (or they should).
Four. Take a few minutes every day to study the user manual for your company’s land database or division order database, to learn all of the features available in a particular process screen. There are always features or areas that you didn’t know were available that will give you a performance edge. The kind of edge that will earn a promotion.
Five. Just develop the habit to continually learn. With cellphones, tablets and computers, few analysts take the time to just sit down and read. A professional oil industry book. A professional energy industry magazine. How many of you reading this have read the latest issue of the NALTA magazine, or the NADOA magazine? I’m talking about reading the educational articles always included in every issue. Have you read them? There’s a treasure-trove of new and valuable information in them, information that any analyst can use to some degree in their own job.
No matter how many years of experience you have as an analyst, there is always more to learn. There are innovations in our work to be discovered. As technology races forward, so must our systems and procedures. The domestic upstream oil and gas industry of today is ever-changing. Flow with it.
