Start Doing FinOps [X]

There’s an open question out to our fellow 11,000+ practitioners, professionals, and prospectives that make up the rapidly growing FinOps community. "How do we know when we’ve started FinOps?” It’s a question the roughly 1,200 of us who attended FinOps X 2023 out in San Diego thoroughly enjoyed exploring and debating over the three days of incredible engagements. These dynamic and collaborative events spanned seven impressive stages and were led by over 100 uniquely talented speaker perspectives. Yet, it was no surprise to realize a consensus decision had yet to surface on the matter even after we all watched the sun set upon our incredible FinOps X journey from the deck of the U.S.S. Midway on the final evening’s award celebration. And I believe that was precisely the point, and hopeful assignment, that so many will take back to their respective communities, companies, agencies, and organizations to contemplate.?

“Welcome Home” was the colloquial expression etched on our hotel room key cards, displayed magnificently on the walls of the conference hall, and shared in many a greeting letting us all know, at FinOps X, we were among peers – those similarly familiar, or eager to be so, with the practice of FinOps. This was a rare opportunity where we needn’t take the time to explain what FinOps is, as we often need to with friends and family, but rather to explore and advance the practice more intimately. I’m eager to share perspective on what that looks like, but first I offer those of you with that “friends & family familiarity” of FinOps, some greater context.?

FinOps, at its core, is a cultural practice. It’s the way for teams to manage their cloud costs, where everyone takes ownership of their cloud usage supported by a central best-practices group. Cross-functional teams in Procurement, Engineering, Finance, Product, IT, etc. work together to enable faster product delivery, while at the same time gaining more financial control and predictability.??

The notion of when you “begin” FinOps, at least from what I was privy to hear or engage, only seemed to beg answers steeped in the form of further questions. They each began similarly: “Is it when…?”??

Is it when we have migrated our first application to the cloud? ?

Is it when we realize our first cost savings? ?

Is it when we realize our first cost optimization? ?

Is it when we first ever learn of FinOps? ?

Hey, by reading this, are you doing FinOps?!??

The point is, we don’t yet have the answer and we may not get or need to have a definitive one. That we’re having the discussion is what is truly important. Greater still, is who is having the conversation. The turnout we saw year one at FinOps X in Austin, TX felt, and was, impressive at the time. However, as we gathered poolside at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina for the welcome reception, it was clear the immense growth and expansion of the FinOps community since the year prior. This is testament and shout-out to 1) the community at-large, absolutely, but more so to 2) the innovative leadership, guidance, and inspiration afforded by the FinOps Foundation team and its generous sponsors who have forged way for this framework to be established and enhanced by and for the community!??

So, we won’t settle here on what it means to start doing FinOps. What we can do is learn what it meant for me, and likely so many others, to be “doing” the conference, FinOps X 2023!?

I’ll note, as a government contractor, turned DoD civilian, returned federal consultant and ultimately a champion of the broader Public Sector and their respective missions and reputation, my experience and interests are heavily rooted in that premise. That interest is neatly and necessarily coupled with understanding, and tutelage of and by industry.?

Editor’s Note: An immense thank you to Rob Martin, the Public Sector Special Interest Group (SIG), and the growing Federal, State, and Local representation that validated prior demand for increased emphasis of the Public Sector track!?

So, whether you were a returning visitor, attending for the first time in 2023, or eager to make advance travel arrangements in preparation for next year’s conference, here’s a sampling of experience and highlights that depict how one might know if and when they’ve started doing the FinOps X conference:???

Upon arrival the evening prior to the start, you’re warmly welcomed with an array of bites and beverages to mingle poolside with your people. You recognize familiar faces, each carrying an incredible insight or many, they’re as eager to share as you are to learn in the days that follow. You look down at your phone to learn so many of our NYC and other travelers have become stranded en route yet have strengthened the community by finding means and method to gather where they are, undeterred and in high spirit to advance their FinOps interests from afar.?

You experience the official kick-off when Executive Director of the FinOps Foundation, J.R. Storment, in his high fashion kicks and higher still energy level steps onto the grand stage of the Keynote to welcome us home. A series of prominent guests from all walks of practice join his side to preview such areas as sustainment, culture, data, billing, and the “what’s next” of things to come. Mike Fuller, CTO of the FinOps Foundation, offers a teaser of FOCUS, which turns out to be more than enough to urge overwhelming attendance at his later breakout session. But we get ahead of ourselves…?

?From the main stage to the breakouts and every vendor exhibit space in between, the remainder of the business day affords you a bevy of breakout sessions, chalk talks, and fireside chats of which you can attend any which pique interest.??

You peruse the Sched app’s lineup of offerings which highlights a notable advancement of the practice year-over-year. Thematically, you see the job of security relative to FinOps, data accessibility, governance, and broader utility of the framework all further emphasize this progress. Your earliest breakouts include the risky business of implementing cloud governance to drive business value as presented by the engaging team at General Mills. This is followed by an alternative application where FinOps tools and processes could be effectively applied. At the Expedia Group, Charlie Wolfe, shares with you his diverse and impressive background enabling him to explore licensing costs as variable spend and imparting the key takeaway that FinOps tools will drive cost optimization via the same principles you’re already familiar with in Cloud FinOps. He boldly, albeit appropriately, goes so far as to remove two instances of “cloud” in a common definition (the one used above to define FinOps) to further emphasize this point. Oh, and to your disbelief you were told this guy was nervous to deliver his session – didn’t show!??

Your first foray in chalk talks of the day introduces consideration of cloud services acquisition within the public sector. The U.S. Army’s Enterprise Cloud Management Agency (ECMA) team highlights their commitment to centralized acceleration to the cloud by highlighting topics and welcoming key audience questions as they relate back to the successful Other Transactional Authority (OTA), Cloud Account Management Optimization (CAMO) use case. Their three-pronged approach to Buy, Secure, and Build is detailed and dissected to identify the strategic considerations necessary towards the successful procurement of cloud services that would reinvent their cloud management processes.?

Chalk talks on the mind and a belly full of street taco lunch goodness, you stay near the whiteboard to see what the brilliant minds of Box and McKinsey would be drawing up when they introduced the concept of FinOps as Code (FaC). This serves an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) concentrated surge of big brain power diving deep into the data, tools, and UI/UX response terminology, actions and platforms that span ingestion, embeddings, chaining (i.e. langchain), Seaborn, Tableau, WolframAlpha, RLHF, and Large Learning Models (LLM). Heavy stuff, but imperative, especially in the effort to ensure engineers are empowered with the data FinOps can produce for them to be most effective in their work. When there’s talk of an evolving practice, FinOps as Code, now sits front of mind.?

The time has come. You navigate to the keynote preview of FOCUS. The breakout space is breaking out at the seams, but your subtle shifting and squirming earns you a shoulder-width across the back wall to learn about the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) that will provide a vendor-neutral defined, cross-cloud schema and terminology, to offer uniformity and simplify billing data to ensure trust and clarity for all users.???

The warmth of a fireside chat draws you in to a Q&A forum hosted by Rob Martin and welcoming the Deputy CIO Melvin Brown and Al Himmer of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the conference’s next successful federal agency case study of public sector migration to the cloud. Here you learn the intentional steps taken to achieve the agency’s FinOps journey success as Melvin shares not only when he discovered the FinOps framework but that he insisted it would be the practice OPM would follow in their cloud journey; precisely the foundation upon which their agency has been so successful while so many other agencies experience greater tumult. True leadership buy-in, understanding, and workforce support is the recipe they share and a critical takeaway for all.??

The business day winds down with a Happy Hour that serves catalyst for new cross-sector friendships to flourish. You meet a strong contingent of the Fidelity Investments group and they welcome you into their circle before strategizing which of the Official Sponsor Evening Events you’ll meet back up. In a world where Cloud is king, a throwback 8-bit After Party sounds just the thing. Poolside, you find yourself getting to know the team at CloudZero, discovering the “doctor” you’ve noticed roaming the halls throughout the day is with Xosphere, and remarking at the all-out jumpsuits and DJ-ing of the folks at ProsperOps. You recount the standout insights of the day with your closest closets over a few drinks, some pizza, a few more drinks, and conversation that explores the challenges many vendors face in attempting to provide solutions, tools or service for the federal government. When the chatter loops back around FedRAMP approvals, Other Transaction Authorities, and sponsorship you decide to call it a night.?

The next day, and now really the remainder of the conference feels like it hits a higher speed. You do your best to pace the day. A keynote from Mike Fuller and a cameo from Kim Weir kick things back into gear. VP of Professional Development at FinOps Foundation, Stacey Case, stops short of falling off the stage, as she recounts her dry-run faux pas, and enlightens the crowd on the primary solution to all FinOps challenges – Education and Enablement! This prefaces the details around the expanded training curriculum, Persona Based Training. You eye Product Owner, Leader, and Procurement but recognize Finance and Engineering are of equal value and likely certification in your FinOps future.??

As you make your way around the conference floor, in and out of engaging conversations, chalk talks, and breakouts you continue to jot further insights you gather. The first several pages of your notebook read such things as, “Success through Collaboration”, “Effective Government Use of Cloud Benefits Everyone”, and “The Action Scale”. The next many pages titled “FinOps Challenges Today” pose further questions: Where do we start on a chargeback model? How can we move away from manual cost optimization activities? How do we drive business value with FinOps? How can we achieve real-time decision making? And how can we drive accountability???

Hopefully you’re willing to check a bag on your flight back east because you’re certainly leaving with far more than what you came.??

In true appreciation of the valuable and abundant public sector presence you spend a portion of your morning alongside Sue Speck and the Department of Veterans Affairs in their Journey to Cloud Optimization. There, their “lift & shift” approach to starting big, migrating three of their largest, mission critical, applications proves hugely successful. Further testament to their ability to recognize much of what they were doing already was FinOps, homing in on that and applying it towards the significant paradigm shift their agency is undergoing. Just another alternative recipe to federal agency cloud migration success!?

Later, in ode to the Persona Based Training that was introduced and in recognizing one last chance to tune into the Public Sector track, you join Deloitte’s Marit Hughes and the Canadian Institute for Health Information’s Sarah Kula in an enlightening persona role play of the challenging perspectives faced in Implementing FinOps at Agency Level Public Sector/Government an insightful and uniquely effective out-of-body Chalk Talk, one might say!?

At this point, there’s only one thing left to do -- scratch that. There are two things: 1) You must determine who the “special celebrity guest” is and 2) You must make it to the Midway. As you embark the only remaining inactive U.S. aircraft carrier (not an Essex-class) and make your (gang)way to the deck of the former lead of her class, U.S.S. Midway, commissioned just 8 days after the end of World War II, you’re disillusioned by the magnitude of it all. The ship, sure it was one of the largest of its time. But today, this turnout, this conference, this community – FinOps. It’s truly been remarkable. Oh look, it’s Maverick! (but was it a Tom Cruise impersonator or just a Maverick impersonator? “Show me the money!”)?

Live band music, delectable dinner bites, drinks aplenty, and a community of diverse, insightful, and advancing FinOps interests all in one place. This is truly a celebration. As Joe Daly continues to grow, entertain, and inspire the community he and J.R. make do time to recognize and honor the many groups and individuals who uniquely and deservedly so make the FinOps community what it is today.??

And really, that is how you know that you have started (and now finished) FinOps X 2023!?

As we look ahead to starting FinOps X 2024, and all the time in between, I implore you to continue to monitor and review the insights you, your teams, and the community at-large have captured here. Introduce the questions and contemplate their answers. As was learned, we may not know yet when we truly “start” FinOps. What we do know is this: FinOps is not a finite endeavor. There is no clear beginning or end. Rather, it is a limitless journey that will endure constant and considerate evolution by each and all of us. ?

+++

#acquisition?#governmentprocurement?#education?#governmentcontracting?#procurement?#procurementleaders?#finops #finopsx