Carrie Endorf, VP of Development Operations at Formentera, talked with us about how her team uses Planner to handle development planning without a dedicated planning group. For a lean organization operating across multiple basins – from West Texas to North Dakota to Australia – flexibility was key.

“What we need right now is something that can grow with us,” she said. “You can see how the planner could be used by a more mature or sophisticated organization, but it also works well for where we are today.” The result? A tool Carrie calls “essentially irreplaceable”—one that would take at least two additional salaries to replace.

The full interview is below, along with a complete transcript.

Transcript

Introduction

Hi, I’m Carrie Endorf. I work at Formentera Operations as the Vice President of Development Operations, which focuses on development—drilling, completions, and subsurface. I’ve been here for about a year and a half. In previous roles, I was heavily focused on planning and development planning in general.

How We Started Using Pod2

When I joined Formentera, Pod2 was already in use, but it was being used exclusively for acquisition work. Originally, Formentera was a PDP-focused company. They had acquired what we call “PDP plus,” which includes development. In order to model that development, they were using Pod2 to quickly take an asset from a bank and remodel what our own drilling schedule would look like, as opposed to relying on the output from a sales case.

Planning and Capital Forecasting

We use it primarily to understand our cash needs—what we need to plan for from a capital standpoint. Before that, we didn’t really have a way to show schedules beyond Gantt charts created in other software. So for us, the planner is primarily used by planners as a communication tool with management and with team members for planning purposes.

On the financial side, it helps us understand how much capital we’re planning to spend on a monthly basis so we can make sure funds are ready and available. On the development planning side, it helps ensure everyone understands where we are in the process and what’s coming next.

Replacing a Planning Team

At Formentera, the planner is probably not utilized the way it is at other companies, or the way I used it at places like Parsley Energy that had continuous programs. A lot of how we use it is to show development options and run those through different models so leadership can approve development. We don’t have a budget and planning group here—that’s just not where we are in terms of staffing and resources—so the planner essentially takes the place of that group.

Why Other Tools Didn’t Work

What I’ve seen with other tools is that they often require a specialist—someone with deep knowledge of planning tools or experience at large organizations. If you don’t have that, those tools don’t get used effectively. That’s one of the reasons we didn’t go that route. It was simply too much for our company.

What we need right now is something that can grow with us. You can see how the planner could be used by a more mature or sophisticated organization, but it also works well for where we are today. That’s important because we don’t have a lot of resources to dedicate to planning right now.

A Tool That Evolves

With every release, the planner becomes more sophisticated, and that’s something we really like. Features like frac interference are being added over time. We’re not there yet, and we don’t need those features right now, but knowing they’ll be available when we do need them keeps us committed to the tool.

Best-in-Class Support

We also feel confident in the people behind Pod2 and planner development. They understand what the needs will be and have a vision for how the tool can adapt. You’ve attracted what I would consider best-in-class talent. When we call with a problem, you understand exactly what we’re talking about. That’s been a challenge for me with other software, where the people building it often come from IT or general software backgrounds, not planning backgrounds.

In other tools, first-line support usually focuses on technical issues, not the planning solution itself. With Pod2, we’ve solved technical problems quickly, but we’ve also had deeper discussions about development scenarios and challenges across our assets. People understand what we’re looking for and what the output needs to look like.

Essentially Irreplaceable

It’s hard for me to imagine another tool we could use in its place. For us, it’s essentially irreplaceable. Any other solution would require significantly more resources—probably at least two additional salaries.

Beware of Frankenstein Systems

I would caution people to be careful of “Frankenstein” systems in other software—tools that have been pieced together over time and may not communicate well. You also need to know exactly what you’re getting. Some planning software has no visuals or poor visuals, or it costs extra to get the reports you actually need. A lot of things may not be included in the base price, so it’s important to make sure the software delivers what you expect.

The Problem with In-House Solutions

I’ve seen different models, including hybrid models where companies use industry software and then build scripts around it to make it work. The challenge with in-house solutions is resources. Building it takes time and effort, and once it’s built, you have to maintain it. That introduces hidden costs—IT resources, coding expertise, and people who understand both planning and software, which is a rare skill set.

That was a challenge for us at Formentera. Even if I had built a solution at a company like Parsley, it wouldn’t work here. We’re a completely different type of company with different assets. Specialty-built software is usually tailored to a specific asset or play, and if your asset mix changes, it becomes difficult to adapt.

Partnering on Well Readiness

Formentera and Pod2 decided to partner to develop the well readiness solution. We evaluated available industry software in detail and even used a third party to help with the evaluation. Given our resources, we felt that Pod2’s well readiness vision aligned best with our needs and with how we wanted to track the process.

Multi-Basin Flexibility

We operate across multiple basins, so there isn’t a single solution that works for us. We needed something adaptable to different timelines, regulatory bodies, and operational challenges. Drilling in West Texas is very different from drilling in the Marcellus or North Dakota. We wanted something flexible that wouldn’t be overly complicated.

Other solutions may have been able to do this, but the effort required on our side to build them out was beyond our staffing capacity and timelines. We needed something that could grow with us.

A Team That Understands

The team working on the well readiness tool understands the space. They met with different departments across Formentera to understand timelines and needs. Because we’re a small but experienced team, our staff understands what they need, and Pod2 was able to take that feedback and develop solutions that work across multiple disciplines and assets.

That includes assets in different stages of development. In South Texas, we’re in early appraisal and early development. In North Dakota, we’re in full development mode. We use the tool for both, and it’s also been used to build scenarios for our Australia asset, including preliminary planning and long-term development outlooks.

A Full-Scale Planning Solution

To me, Pod2 is a planning solution across the board. Well readiness is part of that, but it’s really a full-scale planning solution backed by strong industry experience. What I would say about Pod2 is that it meets you where you are. For us, we’re on the lower maturity side, but I can also see it supporting a ten- or twelve-rig operation. I see it working well for both.

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If you’d like to take a look at the Planner for yourself, schedule a demo or check out https://pod2.co/planner/ for more info.