# Finops Maturity Assessment > Use when performing finops maturity assessment — finOps maturity review covering crawl/walk/run phases across cost visibility, optimization, governance, and organizational alignment. Based on the FinOps Foundation framework. Use for establishing FinOps practice, benchmarking maturity, or planning capability improvements. - Skill: `cloudthinker-ai/finops-maturity-assessment` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add cloudthinker-ai/finops-maturity-assessment` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/cloudthinker-ai/finops-maturity-assessment/raw - Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS) - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: cloudthinker-ai (https://skillmd.com/u/cloudthinker-ai) - Updated: 2026-09-08 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/cloudthinker-ai/finops-maturity-assessment --- # FinOps Maturity Assessment Skill Assess FinOps maturity for **{{ organization }}** with **{{ monthly_cloud_spend }}** monthly cloud spend. ## Workflow ### Step 1 — Current State Overview ``` FINOPS OVERVIEW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Organization: {{ organization }} Monthly spend: {{ monthly_cloud_spend }} Cloud providers: {{ cloud_providers | "TBD" }} YoY spend growth: ___% Engineering headcount: ___ Cost per engineer: $___/month Current FinOps team: [ ] Dedicated FinOps role: YES / NO [ ] FinOps tools in use: [list] [ ] Executive sponsor: YES / NO [ ] Cost allocation tags: PARTIAL / FULL / NONE ``` ### Step 2 — Capability 1: Cost Visibility ``` COST VISIBILITY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CRAWL: [ ] Cloud billing data accessible to finance team [ ] Monthly cost reports generated [ ] Total spend tracked at account/project level [ ] Basic cost breakdown by service type WALK: [ ] Cost allocation tags on >80% of resources [ ] Costs allocated to teams/products/business units [ ] Shared costs distributed using fair allocation model [ ] Unit cost metrics defined (cost per transaction, per user, per GB) [ ] Cost anomaly detection configured [ ] Daily cost reporting available RUN: [ ] Real-time cost dashboards accessible to all engineers [ ] Showback/chargeback model implemented [ ] Cost forecasting with <10% accuracy [ ] Unit economics tracked and trending [ ] Cost data integrated into CI/CD (cost of change) [ ] Multi-cloud cost normalization CURRENT PHASE: CRAWL / WALK / RUN ``` ### Step 3 — Capability 2: Cost Optimization ``` COST OPTIMIZATION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CRAWL: [ ] Identify unused resources (unattached EBS, idle instances) [ ] Right-size over-provisioned instances (basic analysis) [ ] Shut down non-production resources outside business hours [ ] Delete old snapshots and unused storage WALK: [ ] Reserved Instances / Savings Plans cover >60% of steady-state [ ] Spot instances used for fault-tolerant workloads [ ] Autoscaling configured and tuned for major services [ ] Storage lifecycle policies (S3 tiers, archive) [ ] Database optimization (reserved, Aurora serverless, read replicas) [ ] Regular optimization reviews (monthly) RUN: [ ] RI/SP coverage >80% with automated purchasing [ ] Continuous right-sizing with automated recommendations [ ] Architectural optimization (serverless, containers, managed services) [ ] Workload scheduling (batch jobs on spot, off-peak processing) [ ] Data transfer optimization (same-region, VPC endpoints) [ ] Waste elimination automated (auto-cleanup, TTL resources) CURRENT PHASE: CRAWL / WALK / RUN ESTIMATED SAVINGS OPPORTUNITY: $___/month (___% of spend) ``` ### Step 4 — Capability 3: Cost Governance ``` COST GOVERNANCE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CRAWL: [ ] Budget set at organizational level [ ] Billing alerts for total spend threshold [ ] Cloud access limited to authorized personnel [ ] Basic tagging policy defined WALK: [ ] Per-team/project budgets established [ ] Budget vs actual reviewed monthly [ ] Tagging compliance enforced (>90%) [ ] New resource provisioning has cost estimate [ ] Cost approval process for large expenditures (>$X/month) [ ] Quarterly FinOps review with leadership RUN: [ ] Automated budget enforcement (alerts + actions) [ ] Policy-as-code for cost guardrails [ ] Architecture reviews include cost impact analysis [ ] Service catalogs with pre-approved, cost-efficient patterns [ ] Procurement optimization (EDP, committed use discounts) [ ] FinOps KPIs in engineering performance metrics CURRENT PHASE: CRAWL / WALK / RUN ``` ### Step 5 — Capability 4: Organizational Alignment ``` ORGANIZATIONAL ALIGNMENT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CRAWL: [ ] Finance and engineering aware of cloud costs [ ] Basic cost awareness training available [ ] At least one person accountable for cloud costs WALK: [ ] Engineers can see cost impact of their services [ ] Team leads review their team's cloud spend monthly [ ] FinOps community of practice established [ ] Cost optimization part of sprint planning [ ] Cost included in architecture decision records RUN: [ ] Cost efficiency is a first-class engineering metric [ ] Teams have cost targets and report against them [ ] FinOps embedded in product/engineering culture [ ] Cost-aware development practices in engineering handbook [ ] FinOps certifications across finance and engineering [ ] Continuous improvement feedback loops CURRENT PHASE: CRAWL / WALK / RUN ``` ### Step 6 — Maturity Scorecard ``` MATURITY SCORECARD ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ | Capability | Phase | Score (1-5) | Target Phase | |-----------|-------|-------------|-------------| | Cost Visibility | CRAWL/WALK/RUN | ___/5 | [target] | | Cost Optimization | CRAWL/WALK/RUN | ___/5 | [target] | | Cost Governance | CRAWL/WALK/RUN | ___/5 | [target] | | Org Alignment | CRAWL/WALK/RUN | ___/5 | [target] | | **Overall** | **___** | **___/5** | **___** | Scoring: 1=Not started, 2=Crawl, 3=Walk, 4=Run, 5=Advanced Run ``` ### Step 7 — Improvement Roadmap | Priority | Initiative | Phase Target | Effort | Savings Potential | Timeline | |----------|-----------|-------------|--------|------------------|----------| | P1 | [initiative] | CRAWL->WALK | [weeks] | $___/month | [quarter] | | P2 | [initiative] | CRAWL->WALK | [weeks] | $___/month | [quarter] | | P3 | [initiative] | WALK->RUN | [weeks] | $___/month | [quarter] | ## Counter-Rationalizations | Shortcut | Counter | Why | |----------|---------|-----| | "We can skip some steps for this case" | Adapt the workflow steps, don't skip them | Skipped steps are where incidents and oversights originate | | "The user seems to already know what to do" | Complete all workflow phases with the user | The workflow catches blind spots that experience alone misses | | "This is a minor case, full process is overkill" | Scale the process down, don't turn it off | Minor cases become major when unstructured; the process scales, not disappears | | "I'll fill in the details later" | Complete each section before moving on | Deferred details are forgotten; real-time capture is more accurate | | "The template output isn't necessary" | Always produce the structured output format | Structured output enables comparison, audit trails, and handoff to other teams | ## Output Format Produce a FinOps maturity report with: 1. **Current state** overview with spend metrics 2. **Capability assessments** per FinOps domain (crawl/walk/run) 3. **Maturity scorecard** with current and target phases 4. **Savings opportunities** with estimated dollar impact 5. **Improvement roadmap** with prioritized initiatives