The Project Services Model: A Collective Human Endeavor

Project Services at SafeNet is what happened when we realized that, for a lot of companies and teams, just handing them a handful of technical experts wasn’t going to serve them well. Most people wouldn’t try to hire and coordinate several trade contractors themselves for a large project over weeks or months. If you’re not already doing that for your day job you probably shouldn’t do it in the software world either.

SafeNet’s Project Services model recognizes and embraces the fact that software creation is a lot like building construction. Now most programmers would probably be ready to revolt on me after saying that. Coding is not like carpentry. Software architecture is not like building architecture. The labor of building software is not like the labor of building construction. They’re right!

But I think what a lot of people miss is that, as a collective human endeavor, the project of creating software has a lot of similarities to the project of constructing a building. And the same goes for updating or expanding on software, or on a building.
In both cases, you have a group of technical experts coordinating their effort and their availability to produce something that satisfies someone else’s vision. That someone is usually not technical. Their vision is, honestly, a bit hazy, probably not realistic, almost certainly imperfectly communicated, and often prone to change while work is ongoing. You can never be totally sure you’ve understood the landscape you’re building in. And there’s always the risk that you’re going to open up some old structure and find it rotten or moldy inside.

For a small project, you might be okay with calling in an electrician and a plumber and coordinating them yourself. The risk is small, cost overruns can only be so large. But when you look at a bigger effort, things get far, far more complicated. In the construction world, this is where you bring in a general contractor to manage your project. In the software world, you bring in SafeNet Project Services.

We assign every project a Delivery Manager whose explicit responsibility is achieving your desired outcomes. Not just checking off a list of deliverables, but actually solving problems, responding to unexpected events, managing and mitigating risk, giving you options. Their job is being a partner with you in achieving your goals. That’s SafeNet Project Services.

Attain your goals the right way, contact us today!

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