Understanding the Crawl, Walk, Run approach to FinOps is crucial to ensuring the organisation has the tools it needs to scale and grow.
The FinOps Maturity Model is described by the FinOps Foundation as an iterative approach that aligns with the Crawl, Walk, Run methodology. Organisations start small and then grow and evolve their FinOps landscape according to their requirements. As the FinOps Foundation puts it, ‘FinOps is an evolving cloud financial management discipline and cultural practice’. There’s no finish line, there’s only value.
And this value is crucial to the long-term sustainable success of your cloud investments. Why? Because, according to Forrester, there are plenty of horror stories when it comes to money lost within the depths of the cloud making it important to invest into the holistic approach that FinOps provides. Around 80% of cloud conversations involve FinOps and this methodology is gaining traction as organisations recognise the value it delivers in terms of financial, operational and organisational efficiencies.
01: Understanding FinOps
FinOps is not a portmanteau of finance and operations. It is its own discipline that combines finance and DevOps to ensure that the organisation has financial visibility and accountability. Blending multi-functional teams and technologies, it’s the key that unlocks that elusive cloud optimisation doorway. FinOps is relevant to your organisation if:
- Your organisation keeps falling into expensive cloud potholes instead of achieving the cost optimisation it expected
- Your cloud consumption remains vague and elusive, but expensive
- Your cloud migration is proving disruptive and overwhelming
- You don’t have granular visibility into your spend and optimisation
- You’re locked in a datacentre mentality
FinOps has to move at the speed of the organisation without compromising on innovation. This is why the Crawl/Walk/Run approach is ideal for ensuring that the business gets the value it needs at the pace it can manage. However, it isn’t a linear approach as every part of the business has different levels of maturity and evolution is dependent on where each part sits in terms of its capabilities. The concept is less about getting the business to the Run phase and more about allowing for the business to scale in complexity and scope as it requires.
Crawl is essentially a low maturity level with reporting, some KPIs, basic policies and processes put in place, and establishing metrics that help with assessing a maturing and growing FinOps approach. Here, your business is looking at how FinOps can support its growth and cloud optimisation and creating a framework within which this can evolve.
Walk takes you into a more in-depth approach to FinOps as you are now using FinOps across multiple touchpoints and it’s proving its worth. It is here where you can start exploring more complex solutions and applications within your infrastructure and you note gaps in processes and policies that need to be addressed. Your KPIs are more targeted and success is measured more intensely.
Run is less about speed and more about the smooth alignment of systems and approaches that allows for your teams to integrate, implement and deliver seamlessly. Costs are transparent, understanding is universal and teams can rapidly assess projects for success.
FinOps can fundamentally reshape how your organisation approaches its cloud investments and spend without compromising on growth or quality. If you want to know more, Metsi Technologies has the skills and expertise you need to gain an in-depth understanding of your cloud, business and spend.