Conducting repeatable, measurable, thoughtful analysis of the maturity of a FinOps Practice in the context of the FinOps Framework for insights into strengths and areas for improvement of FinOps activities.
Define Assessment Goals
- Understand capability maturity and pick capabilities to assess
- Identify the target groups in the organization it will be valuable to assess
Set Assessment Baseline
- Determine the process and tooling to be used
- Perform initial assessment at the appropriate level of detail
Continuous Assessment
- Determine and set a schedule for reassessment or additional assessment scope/teams
- Re-evaluate goals
- Reassess as appropriate
Definition
Assessment of the FinOps practice allows a FinOps team to measure its own effectiveness, map its activities against the goals of the organization, and identify areas where it will be valuable to mature those activities. Assessment of FinOps Capabilities can be done at every stage of an organization’s FinOps journey.
Assessment enables organizations to benchmark their current capabilities, and pay most attention to the capabilities that are the most impactful to creating cloud value. Assessments are typically done with a Target Group, a subset of the organization consisting of a mix of representative personas. Perceptions and needs of different Target Groups may indicate the need to assess different Capabilities in different parts of the organization. As organizations mature in their cloud use and complexity, they will do more activities in more Capabilities.
It is vital to the success of any FinOps program to measure the effectiveness of its practice in the context of its current requirements, evaluate the level of maturity appropriate for the Target Group, and use this analysis to determine the future strategy and direction of the FinOps practice.
The goal of a FinOps Assessment is to understand the current state of maturity in a particular practice or set of practices, define a goal state that’s aligned to organizational objectives, and create a pathway from the current state to that goal. Attaching KPIs to the goal will enable the FinOps team to more clearly identify where organizational objectives are not being met currently, and to identify areas to Assess and areas where maturity is needed.
Assessments are more effective when assessing a subset of FinOps Capabilities and a small Target Group, rather than trying to assess the entire FinOps Framework. FinOps teams should self-assess before moving out to other Target Groups. By having a more targeted conversation with a smaller audience, the FinOps Assessment enables the assessors to drive deeper dialogue and understanding of the level of maturity and effectiveness today.
An important secondary goal of performing FinOps Assessments is to foster collaboration and understanding across personas and organizational hierarchies. Assessments are a shared activity where the FinOps team can promote good behavior, reinforce common terminology, and promote a culture of cost awareness with teams throughout the organization.
The FinOps Assessment Working Group has published a Guide on Completing a FinOps Assessment and the FinOps Foundation has published a FinOps Assessment Guide and Tool to accelerate this capability.
Maturity Assessment
Crawl
- For organizations with simple or minimal cloud use, complete an annual FinOps Assessment for the core FinOps team
- Future annual goals are defined based on FinOps assessment with clear KPI’s
- Assessments can be documented manually in the format convenient for the Finops team
Walk
- When organizational cloud use becomes more widespread and complex, complete a semi-annual or quarterly FinOps assessment with the core FinOps team
- Annual goals are tracked and measured against the output of the FinOps assessment. Goals are adjusted after each assessment if necessary
- Identify specific capabilities in the FinOps assessment, and evaluate where KPIs are not consistently meeting goals
- Assessment should have a consistent format which allows for easier comparisons between Target Groups and over time
- Appoint a FinOps assessor on the core FinOps team who has a documented question bank of key questions to ask in an assessment
- FinOps Assessments are completed with Business Units or FinOps Champions teams but not on a regular cadence
Run
- Very complex cloud use, or very distributed use of cloud by many teams in an organization requires completing more frequent, quarterly FinOps assessments within the core FinOps Team
- Annual goals are tracked and measured against the output of the FinOps assessment
- Goals are adjusted after each assessment if necessary,
- More Capabilities are assessed, based on FinOps KPIs
- The assessment has an internally consistent format which allows for meaningful comparisons over time
- There are multiple trained FinOps Assessors on the core FinOps team and the FinOps Champions or Business Units have trained Assessors
- There is a central repository of past FinOps Assessments with standard discovery questions organized by FinOps Capability
- FinOps Assessments are completed in the Business Units by a dedicated FinOps Champions on a regular cadence.
- Results of Business Unit FinOps Assessments are shared back to the central team and with partner teams
- Assessment training and expectations shared proactively with Engineering and other persona teams
Functional Activities
FinOps Practitioner
FinOps Practitioner As someone in the FinOps team role, I will…
- I will advocate for FinOps Assessments to be completed in a consistent and accurate fashion and make sure we have adequate Assessors on the team
- I will understand the outcomes from our assessments and how they can be use to set goals for the broader practices
Product
Product As someone in a Product role, I will…
- I will bring open and honest dialogue to the Assessments and speak freely with my knowledge on a specific Capability, FinOps Practice or Process
- I will advocate for FinOps assessments to be completed for our Business Unit and share the results with my team
- I will bring the learnings from the FinOps Assessment to my daily role and factor it in sprint planning and other product decisions
Finance
Finance As someone in a Finance role, I will…
- I will bring open and honest dialogue to the Assessments and speak freely with my knowledge on a specific Capability, FinOps Practice or Process
- I will advocate for FinOps assessments to be completed for our Business Unit and share the results with my team
- I will bring the learnings from the FinOps Assessment to my daily role and factor it in for finance decisions
Procurement
Procurement As someone in a Procurement role, I will…
- I will bring open and honest dialogue to the Assessments and speak freely with my knowledge on a specific Capability, FinOps Practice or Process
- I will advocate for FinOps assessments to be completed for our Business Unit and share the results with my team
- I will bring the learnings from the FinOps Assessment to my daily role and factor it in for procurement decisions
Engineering
Engineering As someone in an Engineering role, I will…
- I will bring open and honest dialogue to the Assessments and speak freely with my knowledge on a specific Capability, FinOps Practice or Process
- I will advocate for FinOps assessments to be completed for our Business Unit and share the results with my team
- I will bring the learnings from the FinOps Assessment to my daily role and factor it in for architectural decisions
Leadership
Leadership As someone in a Leadership role, I will…
- Define clear goals for the business so the FinOps team is able to assess on their impact to the organization
- Support the FinOps team with prioritization and resource to conduct FinOps Assessment in the Core FinOps Team and the Business Units
- Encourage Business Units to participate in the FinOps Assessments and support a culture of transparency and accountability
Measures of Success & KPIs
The FinOps Assessment Guide has a section on Metrics which looks to understand how a specific Capability is measured. Each Capability has documented KPIs which will be assessed as part of the review of that Capability.
If the FinOps team is looking to benchmark itself against industry data, they can check out the most recent or historical version of the State of FinOps Data to draw industry comparisons there. Since a FinOps Assessment can be performed on all FinOps Capabilities, the full list of KPIs that can be used to determine which KPIs are most appropriate for your organization and specific capability being assessed. For a full list of FinOps KPIs, check out the KPI Library
The FinOps team can also measure the success of the FinOps Assessment program by creating program level KPI’s. These could include KPIs such as, but not limited to:
- Number of FinOps Assessments Completed per year (by capabilities assessed)
- Percentage of Business Units Assessed
- Percentage of FinOps Framework Assessed
- Number of Employees trained in completing FinOps Assessments
Inputs & Outputs
- FinOps Framework Assessment Tool
- FinOps Framework Assessment Paper
