A stalled secure facility
can be carried forward.

Anyone holding a secure facility project that has stopped.

• Programs whose facility has stalled mid-design or mid-construction, or failed its path to accreditation.
• Owners with a partially built space and no clear way to finish it.
• Primes whose facility subcontractor failed and who now own the workstream.
• Security officers who inherited a project and its open questions.

Stalls rarely have one dramatic cause.

They have a class of problem that went unnamed for a few months while everyone worked around it: a requirement nobody wrote down, a design that was nearly finished for half a year, an accrediting authority left out of the conversation, a wall closed before anyone looked behind it, long-lead doors ordered after the drywall was up. Each is invisible in a status meeting until it is expensive.

The longer explanation, and why facility and contract schedules drift apart, is in what causes secure facility projects to stall.

Assess honestly, plan from what is true, carry it through.

1. Tell us where it stands. A first conversation at an unclassified level: what was meant to be built, what exists, and what stopped it.
2. An honest assessment of what exists today. The built condition against the drawings, the evidence that exists and what is missing, what was coordinated with the accrediting authority, and the contracts and schedule as they actually stand.
3. A plan from what is true. What has to be opened, re-documented or rebuilt, who needs to be in the room, and a schedule we can hold and report against.
4. One accountable line to finish. Self-performed and partner-delivered scope under one contract, with the evidence assembled as the work proceeds.
5. Carried to accreditation. We work the package with the accrediting authority directly. The Accrediting Official makes the determination.

What helps an assessment start fast.

Have these on hand; we will agree an appropriate channel before anything is shared. Do not send them through this website or by email.

• The drawings and their revision history.
• The construction security plan and any checklist work already done.
• What has been coordinated with the accrediting authority, described in general terms.
• Contracts and scope documents, and the schedule as it stands.
• The open issues as your team sees them.

Unclassified only. Describe the project at a planning level. Do not send classified information or CUI through this website or by email.

Map the symptoms before the first call.

The free stall diagnostic maps what you are seeing onto the classes of failure that usually produce it, with what normally resolves each one, who has to be in the room, and what evidence to gather. It runs in your browser and decides nothing.

• Guide

  Planning a secure facility

  The planning decisions that prevent the next stall.

• Guide

  Secure facility design and build

  The phases, the standards, and why projects stall.

• Guide

  Accreditation

  How accreditation works and who decides.

• Guide

  Sustainment

  Keeping an accredited space in good standing.

The public standards behind this page.

• ICD-705 and its implementing standards, Office of the Director of National Intelligence: dni.gov, Intelligence Community Directives.
• Technical Specifications for Construction and Management of SCIFs (TSPM), version 1.5.1, ODNI National Counterintelligence and Security Center: dni.gov, TSPM v1.5.1 (PDF).

These are the public standards secure facilities are designed and built to. The accrediting authority applies them to a specific facility and may set additional requirements; this page is general information, not a determination or legal advice.

DCSA, or the applicable Cognizant Security Agency, determines facility clearances. The applicable Accrediting Official or Cognizant Security Authority accredits the facility. We prepare, build, coordinate and document, and stay through the determination.