In this episode of the FinOps on Azure Podcast, Nicole Boyd shares a grounded perspective on why many organizations’ struggle with FinOps maturity and why jumping too quickly into optimization often does more harm than good.
Drawing from her experience working with organisations at different stages of FinOps adoption, Nicole explains that the challenge is rarely a lack of tooling or intent. Instead, teams often rush outcomes before putting the right foundations in place.
This conversation focuses on what real FinOps maturity looks like in practice, how organisations typically progress, and why sequencing matters.
FinOps Maturity Is a Journey, Not a Starting Line
Nicole begins by addressing a common misconception: that organisations engaging with FinOps today are starting from scratch.
In reality, most teams already have a basic understanding of what FinOps is and what they want to achieve. Even organisations in early maturity stages usually know they need better visibility, control, and accountability around cloud costs. The issue isn’t awareness — it’s expectation.
Many teams assume maturity should arrive quickly. When results don’t materialize immediately, frustration sets in. Nicole emphasizes that FinOps maturity develops gradually, and progress often looks uneven across teams and departments.
Why Rushing Optimization Creates Problems
A central theme of the episode is the tendency to push for optimization too early.
Nicole explains that optimization efforts frequently fail because teams attempt them before establishing strong foundations. Without clear visibility into costs, trusted data, and shared understanding, optimization becomes guesswork. Instead of driving value, it creates confusion and erodes confidence in FinOps initiatives.
Optimization, she notes, should be a result of maturity, not the starting point.
Measurement Comes Before Action
Before teams can make meaningful decisions, they need to trust their numbers.
Nicole highlights measurement and data quality as essential prerequisites for FinOps maturity. If teams don’t understand where costs are coming from or don’t trust the data they’re looking at, any actions taken are likely to be reactive and short-lived.
This lack of trust often explains why organizations struggle to move forward. Without reliable measurement, conversations about cost become subjective, defensive, and unproductive.
Tools Alone Don’t Create FinOps Maturity
Another misconception Nicole addresses is the belief that adopting a FinOps tool will automatically lead to better outcomes.
While tools can support visibility and reporting, they don’t solve deeper issues around ownership, accountability, or alignment. Nicole stresses that FinOps is an operating model, not a product implementation.
Successful FinOps practices depend on how teams work together, how responsibilities are defined, and how decisions are made not just on what dashboards are available.
Ownership, Accountability, and Education Matter
As organizations mature, FinOps increasingly becomes about people and processes.
Nicole discusses how unclear ownership often slows progress. When it’s not clear who is responsible for cloud costs or decision-making, teams struggle to act with confidence. Education also plays a key role, teams need to understand not just what the numbers are, but what they mean and how they should be used.
Building these capabilities takes time and requires ongoing collaboration across engineering, finance, and leadership.
Read more: Top 6 Azure FinOps Best Practices You Need to Know
Setting Realistic Expectations for FinOps Progress
Rather than framing FinOps around short-term savings, Nicole encourages organizations to focus on building sustainable capabilities.
Maturity means setting realistic expectations, allowing time for practices to develop, and recognizing that progress won’t look the same for every organization. When foundations are in place visibility, measurement, ownership, and shared understanding optimization becomes far more effective and far less disruptive.
Building FinOps Capabilities That Last
The episode concludes with a clear message: organizations shouldn’t rush to advanced optimization techniques without first ensuring they’re ready.
FinOps maturity is about sequence. Establish visibility. Build trust in the data. Enable informed decision-making. Only then does optimization deliver lasting value.
By treating FinOps as an ongoing operating model rather than a quick fix, teams are far more likely to build practices that scale and endure.
