FINOPS CERTIFIED
PRACTITIONER EXAM WITH
COMPLETE DETAILED 2025
QUESTIONS AND CORRECT
VERIFIED
,Prius effect - ANSWERThe effect of changed behavior as a result of making information
about a subject more visible and available.
Three parts of a successful FinOps practice - ANSWERReal time reporting + just-in-
time processes + teams working together = FinOps
Core principles of FinOps - ANSWER1) Teams need to collaborate
2) Decisions are driven by the business value of the cloud
3) Everyone takes ownership of their cloud usage
4) FinOps reports should be accessible and timely
5) A centralized team drives FinOps
6) Take advantage of the variable cost model of the cloud
unit economics - ANSWERmeasure cloud spend against a business metric (total
revenue, shipments made, paid subscribers, customer orders completed, etc.)
Chapter 1: What Is FinOps? conclusion - ANSWER- FinOps is about collaboration
between all teams inside an organization.
- Everyone has a part to play and should become cost-aware.
- The core principles of FinOps should be the foundation of all processes around cloud
financial management.
- Real-time reporting gauges your current spend and optimizations.
- Data-driven processes are key to an organization becoming cost-efficient.
- Business decisions can accelerate and match the rate of cloud resource decisions.
OSSM - ANSWERon-demand
scalable
self-service
measurable
Chapter 2: Why FinOps? conclusion - ANSWER- Cloud spend has -- or soon will have
-- a major effect on organization balance sheets.
- The procurement team no longer has control of the spending. In cloud this power has
been pushed to engineers.
- FinOps allows you to operate at the per-second speed of cloud rather than relying on
traditional monthly or quarterly spend reviews, which allows you to avoid unexpected
costs.
Why a centralized team? - ANSWER- unbiased team shares objective best practices
and recommendations so won't push a specific agenda
- fosters agreement that the spend data is objectively attributed to the correct team
- defines what the organization uses as a business metric so everyone speaks the same
language
, Executive persona - ANSWERexamples: VP/Head of Infrastructure, VP/Head of Cloud
Management and Operations, CTO, CIO
- focus on driving accountability and building transparency, ensuring teams are being
efficient and not exceeding budgets
- drivers of the cultural shift that helps engineers begin considering cost as an efficiency
metric
FinOps practitioners persona - ANSWERexamples: Cloud Cost Optimization Manager,
Cloud FinOps Analyst, Director of Cloud Optimization, Manager of Cloud Operations,
Cloud Cost Optimization Data Analyst
- understand different perspectives and have cross-functional awareness and expertise
- central team that drives best practices into the organization, provides cloud spend
reporting at all the needed levels, and acts as an interface between various areas of the
business
Engineering and operations persona - ANSWERexamples: Lead Software Engineer,
Principal Systems Engineer, Cloud Architect, Service Delivery Manager, Engineering
Manager, Director of Platform Engineering
- focus on building and supporting services for the organization
- consider the efficient design and use of resources via activities such as rightsizing,
allocating container costs, finding unused storage and compute, and identifying whether
spending anomalies are expected
rightsizing - ANSWERthe process of resizing cloud resources to better match the
workload requirements
Finance and procurement persona - ANSWERexamples: Technology Procurement
Manager, Global Technology Procurement, Financial Planning and Analyst Manger,
Financial Business Advisor
- use the reporting provided by the FinOps team for accounting and forecasting
- work closely with practitioners to understand historic billing data so that they can build
more accurate cost models, use forecasts and expertise from the FinOps team to
engage in rate negotiations with cloud service providers
Engineer motivations - ANSWER- want to work on something meaningful and fun
- want to deliver software fast and reliably
- hate inefficiency and want efficient use of resources
- stay up to speed on the latest tech
- are measured by uptime
- want to deliver features, fix bugs, and improve performance
- would prefer not to worry about cost (but are responsible for incurring it)
PRACTITIONER EXAM WITH
COMPLETE DETAILED 2025
QUESTIONS AND CORRECT
VERIFIED
,Prius effect - ANSWERThe effect of changed behavior as a result of making information
about a subject more visible and available.
Three parts of a successful FinOps practice - ANSWERReal time reporting + just-in-
time processes + teams working together = FinOps
Core principles of FinOps - ANSWER1) Teams need to collaborate
2) Decisions are driven by the business value of the cloud
3) Everyone takes ownership of their cloud usage
4) FinOps reports should be accessible and timely
5) A centralized team drives FinOps
6) Take advantage of the variable cost model of the cloud
unit economics - ANSWERmeasure cloud spend against a business metric (total
revenue, shipments made, paid subscribers, customer orders completed, etc.)
Chapter 1: What Is FinOps? conclusion - ANSWER- FinOps is about collaboration
between all teams inside an organization.
- Everyone has a part to play and should become cost-aware.
- The core principles of FinOps should be the foundation of all processes around cloud
financial management.
- Real-time reporting gauges your current spend and optimizations.
- Data-driven processes are key to an organization becoming cost-efficient.
- Business decisions can accelerate and match the rate of cloud resource decisions.
OSSM - ANSWERon-demand
scalable
self-service
measurable
Chapter 2: Why FinOps? conclusion - ANSWER- Cloud spend has -- or soon will have
-- a major effect on organization balance sheets.
- The procurement team no longer has control of the spending. In cloud this power has
been pushed to engineers.
- FinOps allows you to operate at the per-second speed of cloud rather than relying on
traditional monthly or quarterly spend reviews, which allows you to avoid unexpected
costs.
Why a centralized team? - ANSWER- unbiased team shares objective best practices
and recommendations so won't push a specific agenda
- fosters agreement that the spend data is objectively attributed to the correct team
- defines what the organization uses as a business metric so everyone speaks the same
language
, Executive persona - ANSWERexamples: VP/Head of Infrastructure, VP/Head of Cloud
Management and Operations, CTO, CIO
- focus on driving accountability and building transparency, ensuring teams are being
efficient and not exceeding budgets
- drivers of the cultural shift that helps engineers begin considering cost as an efficiency
metric
FinOps practitioners persona - ANSWERexamples: Cloud Cost Optimization Manager,
Cloud FinOps Analyst, Director of Cloud Optimization, Manager of Cloud Operations,
Cloud Cost Optimization Data Analyst
- understand different perspectives and have cross-functional awareness and expertise
- central team that drives best practices into the organization, provides cloud spend
reporting at all the needed levels, and acts as an interface between various areas of the
business
Engineering and operations persona - ANSWERexamples: Lead Software Engineer,
Principal Systems Engineer, Cloud Architect, Service Delivery Manager, Engineering
Manager, Director of Platform Engineering
- focus on building and supporting services for the organization
- consider the efficient design and use of resources via activities such as rightsizing,
allocating container costs, finding unused storage and compute, and identifying whether
spending anomalies are expected
rightsizing - ANSWERthe process of resizing cloud resources to better match the
workload requirements
Finance and procurement persona - ANSWERexamples: Technology Procurement
Manager, Global Technology Procurement, Financial Planning and Analyst Manger,
Financial Business Advisor
- use the reporting provided by the FinOps team for accounting and forecasting
- work closely with practitioners to understand historic billing data so that they can build
more accurate cost models, use forecasts and expertise from the FinOps team to
engage in rate negotiations with cloud service providers
Engineer motivations - ANSWER- want to work on something meaningful and fun
- want to deliver software fast and reliably
- hate inefficiency and want efficient use of resources
- stay up to speed on the latest tech
- are measured by uptime
- want to deliver features, fix bugs, and improve performance
- would prefer not to worry about cost (but are responsible for incurring it)
