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My Journey from Practitioner to FinOps Certified Professional

By Angel Alves, Sr. Manager, Cloud FinOps, Saint-Gobain

Since I started really focusing on FinOps, I’ve been looking for possible training that would help me in enhancing my knowledge and skills in the area. At first, I attended the FinOps Certified Practitioner in the instructor-led format, and I couldn’t be more satisfied about it!

Real-world peer experience adds depth to the course

The biggest benefit about attending the instructor-led course (as opposed to the self-paced version) is that you can debate some of the concepts and actually break some biases and preconceived perceptions about some subjects.

I see FinOps as a transformative process to the organization, and our own experience in the companies we worked in are limited to the reality of those companies. Some things exposed or discussed from general FinOps material or FinOps Courses may not match our expectations. In those cases, it is great to have other peers with different backgrounds that help in giving their view so at the end everything does make sense.

This helps to really understand the principles of FinOps Framework and in some cases will even give some hints on how to change some behaviors you observe in your current company.

Why I prefer instructor-led over self-paced

When I get asked about recommendations about self-paced versus instructor-led, I highly recommend taking the instructor-led, because the experience will be superior to just listening/hearing the content. As I mentioned above, the additional perspective of other FinOps practitioners and peers helps enrich the experience and fit my style of learning.

This also means when attending this training to have your own stories and examples ready to share. The more the cohort can share information with one another, the better overall experience the training can be.

Going beyond: FinOps Certified Professional

After taking the FinOps Certified Practitioner, I was looking for which courses would help me in acquiring additional knowledge and skills. The FinOps Certified Professional course was introduced shortly after I took the Practitioner certification, and it met all the requirements I had in mind for the next step of my FinOps training.

The FinOps Certified Professional course is not just a normal training where you spend some hours studying and take an exam. It’s a more immersive experience, where you get the chance to learn each capability in fine detail.

Championing FinOps principles and teamwork in the process

The entire experience also gives an opportunity for practitioners to stand out among peers and be a role model for the rest of the community by enhancing the content of the course itself. You can also be part of a Practitioner training as a teacher, writing white papers or essays to be published, and many other ways to make sure the community does evolve and you evolve along with it.

At the end, you are part of the “Pro group” that gathers frequently to discuss general topics about the framework. You also are welcomed into a space where you can expose a problem you are facing and the group will provide you with informed hints about how they would solve it (or how they solved it).