Starting your FinOps Practice
I’m living in Belgium and we have a developing market for FinOps. The main reasons behind it are the customers that are scaling up their cloud consumption. That is in its turn the start of new practices arising. FinOps is in my view one of the most important practices you should start developing once you start scaling your cloud usage. Let me help you understand my reasoning behind the statement….
I’m a big believer if you keep control of your cloud cost you will have a cloud journey which will go more smoothly. Compare it with turbulence in an airplane. You never know when you might incur turbulence when you are on a journey. However when the plane starts shaking almost immediatly the pilots will hit the “fasten your seatbelt" button. They will follow a procedure to get all of the passengers safely through the turbulence… This is exactly how a FinOps practice helps you through turbulent times. A solid FinOps practice will put boundaries and procedures in place to help you and your business through turbulent times.
I might even put this statement a little stronger. If you have a solid FinOps practice you will have many controls and procedures in place to ensure your cloud journey is not shaky but only smooth sailing. And when turbulent times are ahead you might foresee the controls on how to handle these.
As an introduction I believe we now have established a basic understanding of FinOps and why this is important in a cloud journey. Now let’s now push things forward a little bit more. How should you start a FinOps practice? Well, I’ll not give away all my crown jewels. However I’ll help you on your way…
Define your starting point
Like a GPS system. You will need to find satelites to guide you on your way. You cannot do this when you are 3 levels down in the ground somewhere in a garage. So you should move to a line of sight for the satelites. When you link this back to FinOps I’m translating this to measuring your maturity as an organisation.
You can ask yourself some of the questions underneath. This is not at all an maturity assesment whatsoever. It will bet the brainjuices flowing ;-).
How do we determine the goals and objectives of our FinOps practice, and what metrics should we use to measure our success?
What organizational structures and processes do we need to put in place to support a successful FinOps practice?
What tools and technologies should we consider using to improve our FinOps practices?
How can we ensure that our Finance and Operations teams are aligned and working collaboratively to achieve our FinOps goals?
What skills and expertise do we need to build or acquire to effectively manage our FinOps practice?
How can we identify and prioritize cost optimization opportunities and ensure that they are being implemented effectively?
How can we balance the need for cost optimization with the need to support innovation and growth within our organization?
What role should automation play in our FinOps practice, and how can we ensure that we are using it effectively?
What communication and reporting processes do we need to put in place to keep stakeholders informed and engaged in our FinOps initiatives?
What would be an ideal cadence for all stakeholders to be informed, and which information are we sharing to the different layers of the organisation?
Now once you have the answer you could start some of your journey. The FinOps Foundation has a maturity assessment on its website. While this is a good starting point I believe there are better more complete assessments.
Define your destination(s)
When I’m going on holiday I love doing this by car. Most of the times I plot my route before with some charging stations along the way. If it is a long roadtrip I’m planning some stayover in hotels or pack a tent to camp in the wild. However when “en route” things change. Sometimes the kids need to go to the toilet before the planned stop. So my plotted plan is rather flexible. This is also the way a FinOps roadmap should work. You can define the big goals. The big achievements for example create 90% tagging compliance. If you have 10% tagging compliance this might be some stretch. However… If you want to have 90% tagging compliance you should also determine which tags are relevant for your business now and in the future. So before leaving on that roadtrip… make sure your suitcases are packed for the weather & activities you are expecting during your trip.
Creating a plan that has some determined milestones if necessary to make sure everyone is going in the same direction and you create a sense of belonging with the teams included in this journey.
Create a stakeholder mapping
As a FinOps architect or cloud economist you should always have a stakeholder map at hand. Who is involved? Who influences positive impact? Who is influencing but has a negative impact on the FinOps journey. Understanding who is doing what and what the background is of these choices is very important to create success in the long run. This in it’s turn sets you up for success with different dashboards and datapoints to help the organisation further in the long run. This creates buy-in and will help everyone to stay onboard and not jump ship somewhere half way through your journey.
Choose your captain
A subtopic in the stakeholder mapping… Not less important though. If you want to build a solid FinOps practice you should create buy-in early on. You need a captain or as we call it a FinOps Unicorn. This unicorn should help you open doors, evangelize the activities, echo communication, celebrate the successes together with the teams,… This person should be an empowered person that has the mandate to change things around and implement solid boundaries. We are looking at managers or alike to have this role.
Create a “home base” for FinOps
FinOps is not a single person game. It is not an switch you put on or off. It is a continious work that will someday be running smoothly. HOwever you should define a home base for FinOps. This might be insight the CCOE or close to the CIO or CFO office but in the end it should be placed on the best spot for the practice. This is rather important for the continued success and empowerement of this practice and the people involved.
As a conclusion,as cloud consumption continues to scale up, developing a strong FinOps practice is crucial for ensuring a smooth cloud journey. A solid FinOps practice will provide boundaries and procedures to help navigate through turbulent times, and put controls and procedures in place to ensure smooth sailing. To start developing a FinOps practice, it's important to define your starting point, determine your destination(s), create a stakeholder mapping, choose a captain, and create a home base for FinOps. By doing so, organizations can prioritize cost optimization, support innovation and growth, and effectively manage their FinOps practice to achieve success in the long run. With these considerations in mind, organizations can ensure their cloud journey is successful and beneficial to their business.