Most programs that get into trouble do not lack advice. They lack people who will stay in the room and make it work. Set Boundaries is a program execution firm for aerospace and maritime work: we plan programs so they start right, recover them when they slip, and close them out so nothing comes back later.
What we do best
Three points where programs are won or lost
Execution, not advice
There are three ways to get help on a program in trouble, and they are not interchangeable.
An advisory firm assesses the program and hands back a report. The recommendations may be right, but the people who have to act on them are the same people who were already stretched.
A staffing agency fills a seat. You get a program manager or a scheduler, and the outcome remains entirely your problem. The agency's job ends at placement.
An execution firm takes responsibility for the result. It brings its own methods, controls and engineering capability, and it stays through delivery. That is the model Set Boundaries is built on: a certified program manager leading a team of project engineers who work inside the program.
The difference shows up in what physically leaves our hands: integrated schedules that hold up when the customer interrogates them, technical data packages, diagrams, documentation and, where the work calls for it, hardware through development and into production.
In the first one to two weeks, Holly talks with the manager of every functional department and with the people actually doing the work, and turns those conversations into a Project Charter: requirements, the definition of success, scope, schedule, major and payment milestones, assumptions, risks and opportunities, budget, roles and escalation. The integrated Microsoft Project schedule is built at the same time, so by the end of that stretch the client has a signed charter and an executable plan. The rest of the first month is spent running it: an interdisciplinary team working the critical path, a weekly two-week look-ahead, weekly customer updates, and leadership decisions made in the open when the plan comes under pressure.
What we run
Every engagement draws on the same set of disciplines, applied at the depth the program needs.
- Integrated program planning. One executable roadmap that brings strategy, operations and engineering together.
- Schedule development. Integrated master schedules built to pass the DCMA 14-point assessment.
- Earned value and project controls. Performance baselines and SPI and CPI tracking that give real visibility into cost and schedule health.
- Risk and opportunity management. Technical and programmatic risks identified and managed before they reach delivery.
- Scope control and technical baseline management. Changes managed and the baseline protected, aligned with AS9100 and ISO standards.
- Independent program assessments. A third-party view of true program status and contract alignment.
- Communication management. Reporting structures that reduce rework and decision lag, from the team up to government agencies.
- Agile methods for engineering teams. Flexibility for R&D and systems work without losing traceability.
Built on programs, not theory
Set Boundaries was founded by Holly Dekle, PMP, whose programs have involved Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Collins Aerospace, General Electric, Pratt and Whitney Canada, Rolls-Royce, HondaJet, Bombardier, SAAB, IHI, KAI, General Dynamics Mission Systems, Fairbanks Morse Defense, the US Air Force, the US Navy and the US Coast Guard (named to describe experience, not to imply affiliation or endorsement). That range, across engines, aircraft, defense and shipbuilding, is why the firm works equally in aerospace and maritime environments.
Holly is able to quickly formulate and execute detailed project plans transforming chaotic programs into predictable successes. Key to Holly's triumphs is her deep project management knowledge, work ethic and clear communication style.
Holly knew how to drive her team to deliver results within a very aggressive timeline and managed change very effectively. When you work with Holly you always know the status of your project and know what will be delivered and when.
What does a program execution firm do day to day?
It runs the program alongside your team. In practice that means owning the integrated master schedule and keeping it honest, running the weekly rhythm of status, risk and action reviews, chasing the suppliers whose deliveries drive the critical path, preparing and leading customer reviews, and making sure every decision the program needs is made on time by the right person. Project engineers handle the technical threads: requirements, drawings, first articles, test readiness and data deliverables. The difference from advice is simple. At the end of each week, work has moved because we moved it.
The difficult customer is usually the reason we are called
By the time someone calls us, the customer relationship is normally the worst part of the program. Dates have moved more than once, the reporting has stopped being believed, and conversations have turned formal. Our record on that is the thing we are most willing to be judged on: we have not yet failed to turn a difficult customer into a satisfied one.
It is not done with better presentation. It is done with three things. Collaboration, which means your customer is in the problem with you early rather than being told about it late. Transparency, which means the status they get is the status we have, including the parts that are bad. And a plan that makes sense, meaning the dates are built from the work and the logic rather than reverse-engineered from the date they want to hear. A customer will accept a later date they can believe. What they will not forgive is being told the date is fine until the week it is not.
What if the real question is how much more this will cost?
Often the program is already late and over budget, and the question leadership actually needs answered is not how to replan it but how much more time and money it takes to finish. We call that stopping the bleeding. It is a short, bounded piece of work: establish what is genuinely left to do against the contract, price it, schedule it, and write down the assumptions and risks the number depends on so it can be defended to a customer or a board. Sometimes the answer supports continuing and sometimes it supports a hard conversation about scope or price. Either way the organization stops spending into an unknown. It is normally the first thing we do on a program recovery, and it can be bought on its own as an independent program assessment.
Which situations do we help with most?
| Your situation | What you are probably seeing | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| A new award | A contract start date, a customer asking for a schedule and a baseline review on the horizon | Front-end planning: schedule, baseline, earned value and governance set up properly |
| A program slipping | Milestones moving, the customer asking harder questions, a team working hard on the wrong things | Program recovery: find the real cause, stabilize, rebaseline if needed, execute |
| A program that will not close | Hardware delivered but open first articles, data packages, changes and invoices | Project closeout: finish every thread so the contract can close |
| Too few people who can run programs | Good engineers stretched across too many programs, nobody owning the whole | Program managers and project engineers who embed and own the outcome |
| Doubt about the status report | Green reports and a gut feeling that they are optimistic | An independent program assessment with evidence |
| No idea what finishing costs | The program is over budget and late, and nobody can say how much more time and money it needs | Stop the bleeding: an honest estimate of the time and cost to complete, with the assumptions written down |
How is success measured?
By the program, not by activity. The measures we agree at the start of an engagement are the ones your customer and leadership already care about: milestones delivered when committed, a schedule that passes structural checks and whose forecast holds month to month, cost and schedule performance indices trending toward plan, open risks being retired on their burn-down, and a customer whose confidence is rising rather than falling. We report those measures honestly every month, including when they are not moving the right way.
How does this compare with the alternatives?
| Advisory firm | Staffing agency | Full-time hire | Set Boundaries | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who owns the result | You | You | You, through the hire | Shared, with us accountable for execution |
| Speed to start | Weeks | Days to weeks | Months | Days to weeks |
| Brings a method | Yes, as recommendations | Depends on the individual | Depends on the individual | Yes, applied by the people doing the work |
| Stays through delivery | Rarely | For the placement term | Yes | Yes, until the program is on track or closed |
| Best when | You need a strategy or diagnosis | You need a pair of hands under your direction | The need is permanent and you can wait | The program needs to be delivered now |
There is a fuller comparison in program management firm or staffing agency.
How are engagements structured and priced?
Engagements are time and travel. You pay for labor hours at agreed rates plus actual travel; we do not buy, hold or mark up material, so there is no procurement margin buried in our invoice. Rates are built to DCAA guidelines and normal federal procurement practice, so they fit how aerospace and defense companies already buy services. The scope is written around the outcome, such as a baseline that passes review or a recovery to an agreed milestone, with a defined team and a regular review of whether the engagement is still needed. Short, fixed-scope pieces of work such as an independent assessment can be priced as a fixed fee.
Who do we work with?
Two kinds of organization call us most often. The first is an aerospace or maritime company that has won a major program but does not yet have the program management infrastructure or experience to execute it. Some call right after the award, because the program is bigger than anything they have run and they are not sure where to start. Others call after trying to run it without a program office, when it has become clear they cannot meet the customer's expectations and their reputation is at risk.
The second is a large, established aerospace or defense organization with one program that needs recovery. The trigger is usually serious: a customer threatening contractual penalties, cancellation, or both. These organizations already have program managers and processes. What they need is someone who can take a specific troubled program, establish what is really happening and run it back onto a plan.
The people who bring us in are usually the President or a Vice President, a General Manager, the Director of Program Management or the Director of Engineering. They carry the customer relationship and the business consequences when a program misses, and they are the people we report to.
Why only aerospace, defense and maritime?
Because the hard part of these programs is where requirements, qualification, technical execution, schedule, cost, customer relationships and contractual or regulatory obligations meet. A generic project management approach treats those as separate problems. On a flight-critical accessory, an engine control or a shipboard system they are one problem, and managing one part of it without understanding the others is how programs drift. We do not take construction, medical or IT work. We also generally do not take routine production program management, where the issues are normally supply chain and obsolescence. Where a production problem needs significant engineering intervention, effectively a small development program inside production, we will take it on.
What do we need from you, and what will we not compromise?
Three things make an engagement work: appropriate decision-making autonomy for the program manager, an interdisciplinary team drawn from the departments the program depends on, and access to the information and systems the program runs on. We prefer to work inside your computer environment, so program information stays under your control, you always have access to status and data, and cybersecurity exposure is reduced. When a resource is not available, we do not pretend otherwise. We explain the tradeoff, develop alternatives and show leadership the cost, schedule, performance and risk consequences of each path, so the decision stays with you and is an informed one.
There is one boundary we do not compromise: professional respect. Disagreement is normal on a program under pressure, and so is the pressure itself. Disrespectful or abusive behavior, from anyone involved, is not accepted.
Most engagements are meant to end. When one does, one of two things is true: the customer is satisfied, commitments have been delivered, milestone payments achieved and production deliveries started; or your organization has a repeatable program management office process and a culture that knows how to run it. The method behind that is set out in how we work.
There is a deliberate exception. For an organization small enough that a permanent program office is not realistic, we will stay and be the program office, running every development program under one set of controls. That is a standing arrangement we already have with a customer, and for a company of that size it is usually the better answer than hiring program managers and project engineers who are still learning the work on your program. It is described under program management office.
Which standards will your customer hold the program to?
On an aerospace or defense development program, many of the obligations that decide whether you get paid sit in standards the contract invokes rather than in the statement of work you read first. The table below is the short version of the ones that actually bind a supplier, and what each means once the work starts. It is deliberately short: plenty of documents get quoted in this industry that are guidance for a government reviewer rather than a requirement on you, and treating those as obligations creates work nobody is paying for.
| Standard or guide | What it governs | What it means on your program |
|---|---|---|
| SAE and EIA, EIA-748 | Earned value management systems | Above certain contract values, a compliant system and a monthly cost and schedule story that reconciles. See EVMS and EIA-748. |
| DoD IPMDAR larger DoD contracts only | The format program data is delivered in | Where the contract calls for it, schedule and cost files delivered on a fixed cycle in a form the customer can load. Most supplier contracts never invoke it. |
| AS9100D | Aerospace quality management system | The system your processes and records are audited against, including risk and configuration control. |
| AS9145 | Advanced product quality planning and part approval | Planning and approval evidence due at defined points, not assembled at the end. See AS9145 APQP and PPAP. |
| AS9102 | First article inspection | Documented proof that the first production article matches the approved design. |
| EIA-649 | Configuration management | Always knowing which design is the approved one, and what changed. See configuration management. |
| FAR and DFARS | Contracting, cost allowability, data rights | What you may bill, and which technical data the customer receives at the end. See technical data package. |
Two things are worth saying plainly about this list. The first is that compliance and execution are not the same thing. A program can produce every required report on time and still miss its milestones, because the reports describe the program rather than move it. We have seen organizations with clean audit findings and a first flight date nobody believed. The second is that the standards are most useful early. Each one implies work, and that work belongs in the integrated master schedule at the start, where it can be resourced, rather than arriving as a surprise in the month the milestone is due.
On a recovery, this list is often where the missing time went. When a team has been responding to customer requests without checking them against the contract, the qualification evidence, the first article record and the configuration history drift apart from the product that actually exists. Rebuilding that agreement is usually part of the recovery plan, not a separate exercise afterwards. It is also why our first step on a troubled program is a requirements to work assessment rather than a schedule rebuild: until you know what is contractually required, a new schedule is only a tidier version of the wrong plan. That assessment is described in program recovery and can be bought on its own as an independent program assessment.
How an engagement starts
It starts with a conversation about where the program actually is: the milestone at risk, the customer pressure, what has already been tried. From there the engagement is scoped to the problem, priced on a time and travel basis to DCAA guidelines, and staffed with the people who will do the work.
References
- US Government Accountability Office, Schedule Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Project Schedules, GAO-16-89G.
- US Government Accountability Office, Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, GAO-20-195G.
- SAE International and the Electronic Industries Alliance, EIA-748, Earned Value Management Systems.
- SAE International, AS9100D, Quality Management Systems: Requirements for Aviation, Space and Defense Organizations.
- SAE International, AS9145, Requirements for Advanced Product Quality Planning and Production Part Approval Process.
- SAE International, AS9102, Aerospace First Article Inspection Requirement.
- EIA-649, Configuration Management Standard.
- US Department of Defense, Integrated Program Management Data and Analysis Report (IPMDAR) data item description.
- Defense Contract Management Agency, EVMS program analysis guidance, the source of the 14-point schedule assessment.
- National Defense Industrial Association, Integrated Program Management Division, Planning and Scheduling Excellence Guide (PASEG).
- Federal Acquisition Regulation and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement.
Questions
Common questions
What is program execution, as opposed to program management consulting?
Consulting diagnoses a problem and hands back recommendations. Execution means the same team stays on the program and does the work: builds and maintains the schedule, runs the recovery, manages suppliers, prepares customer reviews and delivers the documentation. Set Boundaries is built to execute, with program managers and project engineers who work inside the program rather than advising it from outside, and who stay until it is on track or closed.
What kinds of programs does Set Boundaries work on?
Aerospace, defense and maritime programs under schedule, cost or customer pressure. That includes engine and propulsion controls, aircraft systems, defense hardware and shipbuilding, for primes, tier one and tier two suppliers. We work at any stage: starting a new award properly, recovering a program that has slipped, or closing out one that has stalled near the finish.
Is Set Boundaries a staffing agency?
No. A staffing agency places a person under your direction and the program outcome stays your problem. Set Boundaries takes responsibility for execution, with a team that brings its own methods, controls and engineering capability and answers for results. If what you need is simply an extra pair of hands under your own management, an agency may be the better fit, and we will say so.
How are engagements priced?
Time and travel. You pay for labor hours at agreed rates plus actual travel, and nothing else: we do not buy, hold or mark up material. Rates are built to DCAA guidelines and federal procurement practice, so an engagement fits how aerospace and defense companies already buy services. Final rates depend on program complexity and labor categories. Short, clearly scoped work such as an independent program assessment can be priced as a fixed fee.
How quickly can Set Boundaries start?
Typically within days to a few weeks, depending on security and site access requirements, travel and the scope agreed. The first step is a call to understand where the program stands, followed by a short written proposal of scope and team. Access to the schedule, contract and program data early makes the first weeks far more productive.
Do you work with government customers directly or through contractors?
Mostly through the contractors and suppliers delivering defense and aerospace programs, working inside their programs and alongside their teams in front of their customers. Set Boundaries is a woman-owned small business, which can also make it a useful partner for primes with small business subcontracting goals.
What do aerospace and defense consultants do?
Aerospace and defense consultants help companies and government programs plan, manage and improve complex work such as aircraft, spacecraft, weapons, maritime and supporting systems. Typical work includes program management, scheduling and earned value, risk management, supplier and quality support, contract compliance, and independent assessments. Some consultants advise and hand over a report, while others lead the work directly. Set Boundaries is a program execution firm that works inside the program, planning it so it starts right, recovering it when it slips, and closing it out properly.
What does an aerospace program manager do?
An aerospace program manager answers for a program's cost, schedule and technical performance against the contract, from award through design, qualification, certification, production transition and closeout. Day to day that means setting the baseline of requirements, scope, schedule, budget and milestones, leading the interdisciplinary team, managing the critical path, risks and suppliers, controlling customer requests that fall outside the contract, and reporting honestly to the customer and leadership. In the Set Boundaries Program Management Office model, Holly Dekle, PMP, serves as the Program Manager and owns time, money, strategy and major stakeholder communication, so the team can focus on the engineering.
Have a question that is not here? Ask Holly on a short call
