Establish strong executive sponsorship: Since enabling an effective FinOps program requires a large amount of organizational and cultural change, organizations are far more likely to achieve success if a strong, highly visible. and involved executive sponsor works to drive the change.
Build out a communication plan: A well-thought-out and professional communication plan will help to establish buy-in. It also ensures that everyone knows how the changes affect them, and what will be expected of them and their team.
Staff the project with those skilled in organizational change: Changing people’s way of working is much more difficult than changing technology or writing a new policy. Personnel with a background in communications disciplines such as program or project management, marketing, public relations, education, or corporate training can be valuable for driving the sponsor’s vision to the front lines.
Drive desired behavior: When you implement FinOps, you’re asking many people to change how they work in a drastic way. What’s in it for them? As part of the program, you need to design, communicate, and put in place incentives that reward people for doing what you want. For example, evaluating the performance of engineering teams based on achievement of target budgets, not just on feature releases. You could also consider implementing gamification, for example, by establishing a leaderboard for engineering teams and having them compete over how much cost savings they can realize.
Take an iterative approach: Attempting to implement massive organizational change such as FinOps through a “big bang” approach is generally a recipe for disaster. It’s less risky and more effective to work toward multiple feedback loops, to gradually iterate toward the desired end state. For example, you might start by implementing showback, and then later move to chargeback.
