October 2025

Every dollar your company spends is an investment decision and you likely have a wide berth of employees, ranging from geologists, operators and skilled tradespeople to project managers, engineers and CEOs.  No matter their role, every employee should be properly equipped to incorporate economic evaluation methods into their decision making.  Enhancing their understanding of how they can best contribute to or improve a process, and why or why not certain investments are made, will set your company on a path towards its greatest potential.

 

Why It Matters​

Every employee inside the company needs to fully understand how economic decisions are made. Typically, engineers or project managers are responsible for ‘running the numbers’ through computer programs to generate a detailed economic analysis. This is absolutely necessary but you may be missing out on a more comprehensive economic evaluation.  Simply go down into the field and ask an operator, drilling engineer or a blast technician if there are ways that they could improve the existing process and you’ve most likely opened up Pandora’s box as the suggestions start flowing in.  Ensuring that operators and technicians understand why some suggestions are getting accepted and others are getting rejected by a project manager serves to reduce frustration, improve job satisfaction and ultimately equips them to maximize their contribution towards an economic evaluation and ultimately, your company’s success.  An economic evaluation would reveal if a presented project idea would cost too much money upfront without leading to enough downstream operating cost savings to justify the upfront investment, or it might reveal that a small change can lead to massive savings overall.  Having a wide range of employees that are well versed in presenting economic models will enhance the decision-making process.  

 

Core Skills, Not Advanced Finance​

Not every employee needs to know and fully understand the advanced financial details of a model, like Descartes Rule of Signs or why you have two i values in your present worth equation.  However, they do need to understand the basics of time value of money (TVM), and why a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar tomorrow.  The basic ideas of TVM drive decisions the business make.

 

Real-World Relevance

In our course, Economic Evaluation and Investment Decision Methods, we outline the basics of making decisions, linking the subject matter not only to business decision making but also to your personal life.  For instance, when introducing the idea of interest rates, discussing a loan amortization schedule of compound interest in something like a car or house loan makes the material very relatable and is a great starting place for understanding its broad applicability.  Another example might include a service evaluation demonstrating how they can model potential benefits of residential solar panels for future financial savings, or why investing in an electric lawn mower today might be a good idea to save money in the future.  Linking subjects to one’s personal life makes the material come alive for employees. 

The Payoff​

Giving every employee the tools they need to explain to management why their idea is a good idea and how it’s going to save or make the company money is going to lead to success for those companies.  Having the ability and confidence to carry out basic economic evaluations will foster better communication amongst different tiers of employment and therefore, better decision making overall. It’s time to make Economic Evaluation and Investment Decision Methods part of every employee’s tool kit.  

 

Don't take our word for it!  Here's what others are saying:

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By far, the best economic evaluation course I have ever taken. As a geologist, we do not get trained to this side of the business as we should, even though we are exposed to it every day. So, this course was fantastic for somebody like me that had awareness but no foundation in the matter. Andrew did amazing. Loved the use of analogs to help us understand the complex terms and processes. I would 100% recommend this course! 5 Stars!  - Ovintiv, 2025

 

"Brings a lot of light to a complex topic and explains it in ways that non-experts can understand and utilize.” – Ovintiv, 2025

 

“Great course both for personal financial knowledge and project selection/management in work environments."

- Diamondback, 2025

 

“Excellent topics delivered with care and understanding of an audience with a diverse skill set. Delivery was well structured with topics building upon each other.”  – Hecla Greens Creek Mining Company, 2025

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“Great Job making the subject relevant and helping us connect the dots of the theoretical and the actual application of the theory.”  – Pro Petro 2025