On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Michael Steeves <[email protected]> wrote: > * Matt Lawrence ([email protected]) [100504 17:45]: > > [snip configuration management: threat or menace] > >> So, I'm looking for references to best practices that I can take to my >> boss and other management on the preferred way of doing RHEL kickstarts >> and configuration management. Any suggestions? TAL? > > Matt -- it may be worth considering a skunkworks project. Build out a > competing setup that does things The Right Way, and pick one or two > customers that are really dissatisfied with the current environment, > and get them going in the new environment. After a little while, they > should hopefully be able to start providing some pressure to > management that helps to strengthen and further emphasize your > case/points. > > There may be a bit of short-term pain while you get this built, > deployed, tweaked and tuned, but once it's running and you can > demonstrate greater responsiveness it should help to sell itself. > > -Mike
If by "skunkworks" you mean "underground" or "secret", that would be completely the wrong thing to do. One of the big problems with IT in general is when you have someone go off and do something in secret and spend all sorts of time and energy, and then they show up 6 months later expecting everyone to bow down and marvel at their brilliance. Meanwhile all the "real" work wasn't getting done. If it's not on the schedule and management doesn't know about it, a project like that only hurts the business and encourages the "hero culture", which all experts agree is a bad thing. You don't want people doing off-the-books work on pet projects. What you are suggesting is that the OP basically organize a mutiny with a few of their customers against the business. That kind of thing can easily put a company out of business as customers lose confidence in the company as a whole, and will very likely result in the OP getting fired. This is an internal political conflict, and it should be resolved as such. _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
