FinOps, the practice of managing IT costs as a business discipline, is about more than just the technical solutions. At its core, FinOps is about cultivating a culture of accountability, collaboration, and shared responsibility across an organization. Without addressing the cultural barriers, even the most sophisticated FinOps tooling and processes will struggle to drive sustainable business value.
The Hawaiian word “Kuleana” embodies the essence of FinOps culture – the “ability to respond” and be accountable for one’s actions. However, many organizations find instilling this mindset to be one of the biggest hurdles in their FinOps journey.
Based on my experience, here are some of the key cultural challenges that can inhibit FinOps success:
- Waiting for Perfect Insights: Organizations often fall into the trap of wanting to gather complete data and achieve perfect cost visibility before taking any action. The reality is that the first insights you uncover are usually enough to start optimizing and operating more efficiently. Continuous improvement is better than paralysis from analysis.
- Lack of Trust in Engineering: There is a misconception that engineers are not willing to take ownership and responsibility for IT costs. This leads to a disconnect between finance/FinOps teams and the technical teams actually running the infrastructure. Bridging this gap through better communication and shared goals is crucial.
- Siloed Teams and Competing Interests: FinOps requires collaboration between traditionally siloed teams like FinOps, ITAM, and TBM. Without a culture of shared purpose, these teams can be hesitant to work together, fearing a loss of position or territory.
- Disconnect Between Business and IT: All too often, IT is still viewed as a cost center rather than a strategic business enabler. Aligning IT spend to measurable business outcomes is key to shifting this perception and getting leadership buy-in for FinOps.
To overcome these cultural hurdles, organizations must cultivate a data-driven, accountable, and collaborative mindset across the entire business. Here’s how:
Foster a Data-Driven Mindset
The foundation of FinOps is data – breaking down IT costs, understanding usage patterns, and making informed decisions. However, many organizations struggle to build a truly data-driven culture when it comes to IT financials.
The key is to start small and demonstrate the value of data-driven decision-making. Begin by identifying the most critical IT cost metrics that directly impact the business, such as IT spend by business unit, application, or environment. Empower cross-functional teams to access and analyze this data on a regular cadence.
As teams get comfortable working with the data, encourage them to experiment with optimization opportunities. Whether it’s right-sizing instances, eliminating unused resources, or shifting workloads to cheaper regions – the goal is to create a feedback loop where data informs actions, and those actions generate new data for further refinement.
Over time, this iterative, data-driven approach builds trust and credibility. Teams start to see FinOps’s tangible business impact, which makes them more receptive to expanding the data sources and analysis. Before long, data-driven IT cost management becomes the new normal rather than an organizational hurdle.
Cultivate a Culture of Accountability
At the heart of FinOps is a fundamental shift in mindset – moving from IT-costs as a concern to IT-costs as a shared business responsibility. This “culture of accountability” is what the Hawaiian word “Kuleana” embodies.
To instill this, organizations must empower cross-functional teams to own and address IT spend, rather than siloing it within a FinOps or finance team. This means giving engineers, product managers, and business stakeholders direct visibility and autonomy over the IT resources they provision and consume.
One effective approach is to implement a “you build it, you run it and you pay for it” model, where teams are accountable for the full lifecycle of the applications and infrastructure they deploy. This encourages a more prudent, cost-conscious approach, as teams know they’ll be on the hook for managing those IT expenses.
Accountability also requires clear goal-setting and performance tracking. Establish IT cost optimization targets that are tied to broader business KPIs, and make them visible across the organization. Celebrate successes and learnings, rather than simply punishing overspend.
The key is to foster a mindset where IT cost management is seen as a shared responsibility, rather than someone else’s problem. When teams feel empowered and invested in the financial impact of their decisions, they’re more likely to embrace FinOps as a strategic imperative, not just a compliance exercise.
Enable Cross-Functional Collaboration
FinOps is inherently a cross-functional discipline, bringing together teams like finance, IT, engineering, and product management. However, siloed thinking and competing priorities can often undermine effective collaboration.
To break down these barriers, organizations should establish clear governance models and communication channels for FinOps. This might include:
- Forming a central FinOps committee or working group, with representatives from key stakeholder teams. This group can set the strategic direction, define policies and processes, and coordinate cross-team initiatives.
- Implementing regular FinOps meetings or “IT cost reviews” where teams come together to discuss optimization opportunities, roadblocks, and learnings. These forums encourage knowledge sharing and visibility.
- Defining service level agreements (SLAs) between teams, outlining expectations and accountability for things like cost allocation, budget management, and optimization projects.
- Encouraging job rotations, cross-training, and “embedded” FinOps roles that foster a deeper understanding of each team’s priorities and constraints.
The goal is to create an environment of trust, transparency, and shared purpose around IT cost management. When teams feel they’re working towards a common objective, rather than competing agendas, they’re much more likely to collaborate effectively.
Align FinOps to Business Value
One of the biggest cultural hurdles in FinOps is the perception of IT as a cost center, rather than a strategic business enabler. To overcome this, organizations must demonstrate how FinOps initiatives directly contribute to broader business outcomes and priorities.
This starts with understanding the key business drivers and translating them into FinOps goals and metrics. For example, if a company’s top priority is driving customer acquisition, FinOps could focus on optimizing the IT spend for customer-facing applications and digital experiences. If the main objective is improving operational efficiency, the FinOps agenda would emphasize cost reduction and infrastructure optimization.
By aligning FinOps to these higher-level business outcomes, teams can build a stronger case for leadership buy-in and investment. It also helps shift the narrative around IT costs – instead of just focusing on reducing spend, the conversation centers on how FinOps enables the business to be more agile, innovative, and competitive.
Importantly, this business-centric approach should extend to how FinOps teams communicate and collaborate. Rather than speaking in technical jargon or finance-centric metrics, FinOps practitioners should learn to articulate the business impact of their work using the language of their cross-functional partners.
The ultimate goal is for FinOps to become a strategic enabler, not just a cost-cutting function. When the business sees FinOps as a critical lever for achieving their goals, the cultural hurdles start to break down, and FinOps becomes a true collaborative effort across the organization.
Conclusion
Successful FinOps implementation is about more than just the technical solutions – it’s about cultivating a cultural transformation across the entire organization. By fostering a data-driven, accountable, and collaborative mindset, companies can overcome the key cultural hurdles that often undermine FinOps initiatives.
At the heart of this cultural shift is the Hawaiian concept of “Kuleana” – the ability and willingness to respond to the challenges at hand. When IT cost management becomes a shared responsibility, rather than just an IT concern, teams are empowered to make informed, autonomous decisions that drive measurable business value.
To get there, organizations must:
- Embrace a data-driven approach to IT financials, using insights to inform continuous optimization.
- Instill a culture of accountability, where teams own the IT resources they provision and consume.
- Break down siloes and enable cross-functional collaboration through clear governance and communication.
- Align FinOps initiatives directly to strategic business priorities and value creation.
Only by addressing these cultural dimensions alongside the technical implementation of FinOps companies will be able to unlock the full potential of IT cost management. The cultural challenge may be the harder part, but it is essential for lasting FinOps success.