Establishing an operating model

We’ve already established that a successful FinOps practice depends on the foundation of how you structure your AWS accounts. But how you structure your AWS accounts will likely depend on how you organize your business teams. Organizational structure is important because if the way you operate FinOps does not align with how your teams operate, you’ll create a chasm that disrupts any well-intended cost-saving initiatives. Conway’s law particularly holds true within FinOps:

Any organization that designs a system…will inevitably produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.

(Melvin Conway, How Do Committees Invent?)

Teams must know which role they play when contributing to projects that yield business value. They also need to know how their team synergizes with others when they collectively work toward set goals. The same ideas apply when implementing FinOps. Rather...