In this episode of the FinOps Weekly podcast, Victor is joined by Frank from Coblan to discuss a major shift in how companies manage cloud costs. They dive into why traditional "bottom-up" FinOps often fails and how a "top-down" strategy can lead to better results.
Frank explains that asking engineers to fix things without a clear strategy is a common mistake. Instead, leadership should set the vision and constraints, allowing technical teams to work effectively within a defined "sandbox."
Key topics covered in this episode:
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up: Why FinOps teams should look to leadership for priorities rather than relying solely on automated tool recommendations [03:55].
Context is Everything: Why raw numbers like "46%" or "$300,000" are useless without understanding the business goals and profit margins behind them [19:54].
The Power of Constraints: How setting clear technical limits can actually free developers to be more creative and productive [15:59].
Speaking the Language of Finance: A real-world example of how translating cloud terms (like Reserved Instances) into financial concepts can win over a CFO [11:12].
Actionable Advice: The importance of reading your company's strategy reports and working with Product Owners to get FinOps tasks into the official backlog [50:01].
If you want to move beyond just "chasing savings" and start driving real business value through your cloud strategy, this conversation provides the roadmap.
Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNsEYhUvsB0
