Are we getting the value the agreement promised, and can we prove it?
We are advisors, not advocates. We do not provide legal representation or expert witness testimony. Sentinel documents. The agency decides. The vendor responds.
Every mission-critical software deployment ends the same way. A go-live date. A press release. A handover. And then the slow erosion of the original promise. Modules quietly stop being used. Workarounds replace workflows. The system works as configured, not as intended.
This is where Sentinel Value Assurance begins. The practice of answering the one question the vendor’s customer success team cannot: is the value the agency paid for being realized? We answer it with evidence. Independently. Continuously. With the structured recourse to do something about the answer.
The gap SVA fills has not been invented for marketing. It is the gap that has existed on every large government technology deployment for the last twenty years. Vendors ship. Agencies sign. Value quietly erodes. No one keeps score. SVA keeps score.
We start by establishing baseline. What was promised in the RFP. What was committed in the SOW. What was delivered at acceptance. What is being used today. These four things have almost never been mapped against each other in one place. SVA produces that map.
Then we measure. Module by module, role by role, business process by business process. We instrument the system the way a serious operations team would instrument it, and we read the data against the original intent.
When the data shows realized value, we document it. Agency leadership gets the evidence they need to defend the investment to the people who funded it. When the data shows shortfall, we activate the recourse model: a tiered framework that escalates from facilitation through structured remediation, reaching procurement evaluation only as a last resort.
Every SVA engagement delivers a defined set of branded Sentinel artifacts. Operational tools designed to live with the agency long after Sentinel’s engagement closes.
SVA is the practice where the deliverables are also the metrics. Success is not a feeling. It is a number, reported on a defined cadence.
You need this practice when you are about to write the check, have already written it, or are approaching a renewal without the evidence to make the decision well.
SVA closes the loop. It measures the outcomes the other three practices delivered, and feeds findings forward into future engagements.
Program management ensures the agreements SVA later measures against are written measurably to begin with. SDF builds the contract. SVA measures whether the contract delivered.
Change readiness prepares the people to use what was deployed. SVA measures whether that preparation shows up as adoption. Where it does not, SVA activates SRM as a remedial intervention.
Configuration authority produces the baseline. SVA measures what that baseline delivered. The three signature artifacts SDB transfers are the evidentiary foundation SVA uses over time.
When Sentinel is engaged for SVA only, after a deployment is already underway or complete, we begin with a four to six week Phase Zero baseline reconstruction.
We pull every existing artifact. The RFP. The SOW. The change orders. The acceptance documents. The training materials. The support ticket history. We reconstruct the original intent. We agree the baseline jointly with the agency and the vendor before any measurement begins.
Phase Zero produces a Reconstructed Value Realization Plan that becomes the governing document for the engagement. This is not a workaround. It is a deliberate methodology. Sentinel does not pretend to govern what we did not see built. We rebuild the baseline first. Then we govern forward.
Sentinel Value Assurance is delivered by Sentinel practitioners. It is not offered as a training course. The methodology requires pattern recognition and diagnostic judgment that cannot be transferred through a classroom.
Sentinel Sustain is our post-engagement governance retainer. Quarterly value reviews. Annual benefits reports. Standing access to Sentinel practitioners. Three tiers, built for agencies that understand the difference between buying software and sustaining operations.
Quarterly value review. Annual Benefits Realization Report. Annual Administrator Value Brief. The baseline governance retainer.
Core plus monthly pulse check. Standing vendor mediation access. Semi-annual SRM refresh cycles.
Active plus embedded part-time governance lead. Annual SDF posture audit. Training refresh cycles. Priority response.
Have an investment to defend, a renewal to make, or a deployment that is not delivering?
Talk to a Sentinel practitioner