Is the work being run like a program, not a project dump?
SDF is how Sentinel runs a program. Schedule, risk, decisions, stakeholders, owned on the agency’s side of the table and documented to defend any future scrutiny.
Mission-critical technology deployments do not fail because the software is broken. They fail because nobody ever treated them like a program. The schedule is a vendor PDF. The risk register is an email thread. The decisions that matter get made in hallway conversations and forgotten by the next administration.
SDF is how Sentinel runs a mission-critical program so that nothing gets lost, nothing gets unowned, and nothing gets decided without a record. Our framework is PMI-disciplined and public-sector literate. Every artifact is built to be defensible before council, audit, budget review, and the next administration’s inherited scrutiny.
Every cadence is built to keep executives, operational staff, vendors, and auditors aligned against the outcomes the agency actually bought. When things go wrong, because they do on programs this complex, SDF is how Sentinel surfaces the issue early, frames it for executive decision-making, and documents the resolution.
We run the program. Fully. That means owning the integrated master schedule, maintaining the risk and issue registers, governing the change control process, documenting every decision with traceability back to its author and its rationale, and running the stakeholder cadence that keeps everyone honest.
We do not replace the agency’s project manager. We augment, upgrade, or when called for, lead as the prime program manager with agency staff integrated under our discipline. Either way, Sentinel carries the accountability for program health, and we produce the evidence of that health on a published cadence.
By the time a program needs council briefing, budget re-authorization, or audit response, the record is already complete and the response is ready.
Every SDF engagement delivers a defined set of branded Sentinel artifacts. Governance tools built to live with the agency long after Sentinel’s engagement closes.
SDF reports program health on a published cadence. Success is not a feeling. It is a number, measured and defended.
You need this practice when the program is too complex, too public, or too long-running to be managed on project management alone.
SDF is the connective tissue. It runs the program under which every other Sentinel practice delivers.
SDF builds the program. SRM builds the people ready to use what the program delivers. SDF integrates the readiness schedule into the master plan so people-readiness is never an afterthought.
SDF governs the program at the executive layer. SDB governs the configuration inside it. SDF surfaces the risks. SDB resolves the configuration-specific ones.
SDF ensures the agreements are written measurably. SVA measures whether those agreements were delivered. Every SDF artifact becomes SVA’s evidentiary foundation.
When Sentinel is engaged mid-program, after vendors are already selected and deployment is underway, we begin with a four to six week program health assessment.
We inventory the existing artifacts, audit the current cadence, map the real stakeholder landscape against the declared one, and produce a Program Health Report that names what is working, what is broken, and what Sentinel will take ownership of going forward.
Phase Zero closes with jointly agreed success criteria before Sentinel commits to outcomes. Sentinel does not pretend to govern what we did not see begin. We reconstruct the baseline first. Then we govern forward.
SDF is one of two Sentinel practices offered as formal training. Agencies building internal program management capability can be trained in SDF discipline through Sentinel’s Training hub. The methodology is public. The proprietary toolkits, templates, and engagement-specific artifact library remain Sentinel’s.
Sentinel Sustain keeps SDF active across the life of the investment. Governance refresh cycles. Annual program posture audits. Standing access to Sentinel practitioners for escalation and cadence reset.
Annual program posture audit. Quarterly governance health check. The baseline retainer for ongoing program discipline.
Core plus monthly cadence review. Standing access to Sentinel program leads for escalation. Semi-annual vendor accountability sweeps.
Active plus embedded part-time program governance lead. Annual SVA cross-audit. Training refresh cycles. Priority response.
Ready to run your program like a program?
Talk to a Sentinel practitioner