Scope and focus

The pressure on scope and focus will depend on why your organization has started using Puppet. If it is an exercise for an individual team, such as the Oracle team, to automate its deployment, the pressure will be less than a transformation program that has bought a large Puppet Enterprise contract. In big transformation programs, it can be tempting to pursue big goals quickly to earn this cost back. This is dangerous because configuration problems are complex, and technologists are prone to optimism about how quickly solutions can be created. Additional pressure can come from sales teams and decision-makers who may have oversold how quickly change can be implemented to get the necessary funding. This is not advocating against having a vision or a Jim Collins-style big hairy audacious goal. The future vision is needed but it has to be shown that it will be an incremental journey of improvement to get there, and these increments will deliver immediate and recurring value...