I have worked in FP&A for the past 6 or so years after working in the investment world. For a short time (8 or so months) I supported a CIO and had to approve t

I have worked in FP&A for the past 6 or so years after working in the investment world. For a short time (8 or so months) I supported a CIO and had to approve the NPV analysis of every tech project that the company did. The thing that most project managers / engineers don't see is that finance's real job is to simplify the story and fact check the assumptions so that execs can rely on the investment being reasonable. Execs don't care if the NPV is to the penny, they care that it makes logical sense and that business leaders (brand leaders, region leaders or whoever is SVPsh level) supports the project. More than 50% of my time was just talking to execs trying to lock down support for other people's projects so they could get them done. Often times when a project get rejected, its not because finance made the decision, its because tech didn't get the right business leaders on board before asking for a project investment. > Risky and unproven new projects with unclear (but potentially massive) returns or indirect relations like production engineers increasing the productivity of application engineers through automation do simply not exist in that world. If you do a lot of risky and unproven new projects with unclear (but potentially massive) returns, the business will go bankrupt and everyone will lose their jobs and equity. Incremental, but repeated small and correct bets usually are best for driving high returns on capital overtime. Sometimes when an intuitive exec sees an opportunity they need to take a shot on goal and risk some capital. In those cases, finance is kind of out of the picture as the exec needs to stand on their own. > And that includes the finance department, of which I've certainly seen some of the most stupid ideas. Like software capitalization/activation that did made sense for converting opex to capex in the GAAP sheets, but in the end drove all the best engineers away because of all the mindless paperwork. Just one of many examples. The opex to capex justification stuff comes from accounting, not finance. Its very painful, but the accounting teams must follow the law/gaap rules of accounting. > Finance isn't any more intelligent than the other players in the company. Absolutely correct. Just another cog in the corporate machine. If you find yourself frustrated with any cog (co-workers) its probably best to talk to them and figure out what you are missing. Most people are trying their hardest.