ctrl-alt-expletive

Episode 16: FinOps, with Alison McIntyre

Listen Later

Alison McIntyre, Director of Cloud Economics at Capgemini gives us a tour of modern FinOps, and the state of FinOps report

  • Michael is investigating Liberating Structures
  • Mark doesn't know what a Clementine is
  • Alison gets in on the ground floor on a new FinOps project

    • Subscribe to our new Newsletter! Stay informed about new episodes, and get beautiful news and recommendation links.

    Who is Alison McIntyre?

    IT support -> Scottish Parliament -> Lloyds Bank -> Capgemini, with some stories along the way!

    Quickfire Questions:
    • What is one FinOps practice you take into your personal life?
    • What is the most likely offender of unnecessary spend in your experience?
    • Which roles are most receptive to the introduction of FinOps concepts?
    • What is one memory that sticks out from interviewing Michael?
    • What is the biggest misconception about FinOps?
    • What is the most memorable reaction you’ve seen when you’ve shown someone the cloud spend their team is accountable for?
    • What is FOCUS?
    • What is Cloud Plus, and Scopes?
      • Breaking Prod

      Alison will happily unplug your network cables for you

      Big Topic: FinOps
      • The term ‘unit economics’ comes up in all the literature, what does it mean
      • What is the structure of that team? What sort of roles exist in a team like this when a company decides to have one?
      • If you have an internal developer platform, does chargeback need to include the cost of the team developing that platform?
      • What if other teams internally aren’t willing to eat that cost? Can they reject the Internal Developer Platform and do it themselves?
      • Is there a lot of tooling provided by the hyperscalers?
      • Is it significantly harder to track consumption with on-premise infra?
        • News

        We cover the 2025 State of FinOps report

        We get hot takes from our expert.

        "Workload optimization and waste reduction is the top priority by a clear margin"

        "In the next 12 months, governance and optimization are top for future priorities"
        "“Organizational Alignment” still the top way to achieve priorities but “Investment and Tooling” has risen significantly"
        "Practitioners are increasing effort in many capabilities while reducing effort in very few"

        Recommendations
        FinOps
        • FinOps Foundation website
        • Cloud FinOps book, by J. R. Storment and Mike Fuller (O'Reilly)
        • FinOps Weekly podcast
          • Books
          • Unlearn audiobook (audible)
          • 1984 Audiobook, featuring Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott and Tom Hardy
            • TV & Film
            • A Real Pain, Drama film on Disney+
            • The Studio, Comedy series on Apple TV
            • White Lotus, Drama series on Sky
            • MobLand, Crime Drama on Paramount+
              • Music
              • Cultdreams - Love Won't Let Me Go & Death Consumes Me :: Indie Rock :: Apple Music · Spotify · YouTube
                • Technology
                • Arc browser
                • Crossplane

                  • If you've enjoyed the show, recommend it to a friend! Or leave us a rating/review on apple/spotify to help others find us.

                  Subscribe to our new Newsletter! Stay informed about new episodes, and get beautiful news and recommendation links.

                  GIVE US FEEDBACK! Do this form, it will take 4 mins

                  Special Guest: Alison McIntyre.

                  ...more
                  View all episodesView all episodes
                  Download on the App Store
                  ctrl-alt-expletiveBy Mark McCracken & Michael McCarthy