Technology procurement in public safety is where good ideas go to die. A police chief sees a demo at a conference, requests a quote, and the proposal sits in a budget queue for 18 months while the department continues documenting scenes with tape measures and point-and-shoot cameras. The McDermott Group exists to break that cycle. As a consulting firm focused on technology adoption for police and fire departments, the firm guides agencies through evaluation, funding, implementation, and change management so new tools actually reach the field.
SkyeBrowse — a platform that converts drone or smartphone video into forensic-grade 3D models — became a cornerstone of The McDermott Group's technology recommendations because it passes every evaluation test during the client site visit itself. No specialized hardware to procure, no processing workstation to configure, no months of training before the first usable output.
Key Takeaways
- The McDermott Group recommends SkyeBrowse because the evaluation criteria that matter to their clients — single-shift learnability, hardware flexibility, and courtroom defensibility — are the exact criteria the platform was built to satisfy.
- Vendor lock-in is a recurring obstacle in fleet-diverse agencies; SkyeBrowse's hardware-agnostic capture means the firm can recommend it regardless of which drone manufacturer an agency already operates.
- During a single-day evaluation visit, The McDermott Group captures a practice scene and walks leadership through a fully processed 3D model before the afternoon briefing — that real-time demonstration closes more skeptics than any written proposal.
- Premium Advanced's forensic accuracy satisfies both reconstruction units and the prosecutor's office during pilot programs, removing the two most common internal objections in one demonstration.
- The firm uses SkyeBrowse's documented ROI figures as the quantitative backbone of grant applications, giving budget reviewers the measurable impact statements that unlock public safety technology funding.
Contents
- Why The McDermott Group Chose Videogrammetry
- The Evaluation-Day Methodology That Closes Skeptics
- Adoption Barriers and How the Firm Removes Them
- Accreditation, Compliance, and State Review Standards
- Measuring What Matters: Agencies Onboarded Per Quarter
- FAQ
Why The McDermott Group Chose Videogrammetry
The McDermott Group chose SkyeBrowse videogrammetry because it passes the three evaluation criteria that matter to their public safety clients: patrol officers can learn it in a single shift, it works with hardware agencies already own, and its output withstands courtroom challenges. Most 3D mapping platforms fail at least one of those tests; SkyeBrowse passes all three.
The McDermott Group assesses technology against three criteria that matter to the agencies it serves: can patrol officers learn it in a single shift, does it work with equipment already in the fleet, and will the output survive a courtroom challenge. Most 3D mapping platforms fail at least one of those tests.
Traditional photogrammetry requires structured photo grids, specific overlap percentages, and hours of desktop processing. Officers make capture errors in the field, discover them during processing, and lose confidence in the platform. SkyeBrowse's continuous video approach eliminates that failure mode. Walk or fly, capture video, upload. The platform handles the rest.
Universal Upload accepts any .MP4 or .MOV from drones, smartphones, body-worn cameras, or 360 cameras. The McDermott Group can recommend SkyeBrowse to a department running any drone manufacturer's hardware without creating a vendor lock-in conflict.
Processing at a 1:1 ratio means the firm can demonstrate real results during a single-day evaluation visit. Agency leadership sees a scene captured, processed, and measured before lunch. That immediacy converts skeptics faster than any slide deck.
The Evaluation-Day Methodology That Closes Skeptics
The McDermott Group's evaluation-day approach turns a single site visit into a live proof of concept. A practice scene is captured and processed on location, and leadership walks through a finished, measurement-ready 3D model before the afternoon debrief. Agencies that see the output in the same room where they raised objections rarely need a second meeting to approve the pilot.
The McDermott Group does not rely on vendor-supplied case studies to carry evaluation meetings. The firm arrives on site, identifies a practice area — a parking lot, a staged crash, a building exterior — and captures footage using whatever drone the department already owns. That footage uploads to app.skyebrowse.com, and within minutes the leadership team is looking at a navigable 3D model with accurate spatial measurements.
That demonstration sequence is the firm's most reliable conversion tool. Decision-makers who walked in skeptical of "another tech initiative" leave the room having seen reconstruction-grade output that agencies can present to their oversight boards as a proven capability. The conversation shifts from whether to adopt to how to fund it — and the firm is already prepared with grant application templates built around the department's own demonstration data.
Agencies successfully onboarded per quarter is the metric The McDermott Group uses internally to measure its effectiveness. SkyeBrowse's 1:1 processing ratio — video length maps to processing time — is the mechanical reason that metric remains high. Demonstrations that require overnight processing queues do not close deals. Demonstrations that finish before the debrief do.
Adoption Barriers and How the Firm Removes Them
Institutional resistance follows predictable patterns: procurement timelines, training burdens, and the fear that a single tech-savvy officer will leave and take the program with them. The McDermott Group addresses all three systematically, with SkyeBrowse's design eliminating the training and sustainability barriers before change management even begins.
The McDermott Group's engagements typically follow a phased approach: needs assessment, technology selection, pilot program, full deployment, and sustainability planning. SkyeBrowse fits cleanly into each phase because the platform's design anticipates the objections agencies raise before the firm can raise them first.
During the pilot, a small group of officers captures practice scenes and reviews the resulting models. The output quality — reconstruction-grade precision that meets state accreditation expectations — satisfies both the reconstruction unit and the prosecutor's office in the same session. Officers who were skeptical of "another tech initiative" see the processing speed and model fidelity firsthand.
Full deployment training covers capture methodology for every scene type the agency handles: crashes, crime scenes, fire investigations, and tactical pre-planning. The McDermott Group builds agency-specific standard operating procedures around SkyeBrowse's workflow, ensuring the technology integrates with existing report writing, evidence management, and case filing systems.
Sustainability planning addresses the long-term adoption risk that kills most technology deployments. SkyeBrowse's capture process is straightforward enough for any patrol officer to execute without specialized credentials. The capability persists even as personnel rotate — the department is never one resignation away from losing its documentation capability.
Accreditation, Compliance, and State Review Standards
State accreditation reviews increasingly scrutinize evidence documentation methodology. The McDermott Group validates SkyeBrowse's output quality and security architecture against FBI CJIS Security Policy requirements, giving agencies standardized evidence quality they can present to accreditation reviewers as a demonstrated and repeatable capability.
The McDermott Group includes CJIS compliance assessment and evidence handling protocol development in every engagement. Agencies that have been burned by vendors promising compliance without delivering it receive independent validation — the firm reviews SkyeBrowse's architecture against FBI CJIS Security Policy requirements before the platform appears in any formal recommendation.
Standardized evidence quality is the compliance argument that resonates most with agencies navigating state accreditation reviews. When every officer follows the same capture checklist and every upload produces a consistent, measurement-ready model, the department can demonstrate a repeatable methodology rather than defending ad hoc scene-by-scene variations. That consistency helps agencies pass the documentation audits that state accreditation programs require.
GovCloud hosting satisfies the cloud-infrastructure restrictions that many state accreditation standards impose on evidence data, while CJIS-compliant audit trails document every access event in a form that accreditation reviewers can examine directly. The IADLEST National Certification Program framework informs how The McDermott Group structures officer certification around new platforms, ensuring training documentation aligns with recognized standards when agencies face audit or litigation challenges.
GLB models give prosecutors interactive walkthroughs for jury presentations, and their compact file size makes sharing with outside counsel straightforward.
Measuring What Matters: Agencies Onboarded Per Quarter
The McDermott Group's consulting value is measured in agencies that reach operational readiness — not demos given or proposals submitted. SkyeBrowse's frictionless onboarding means more engagements reach the full-deployment milestone per quarter, a throughput advantage that compounds as the firm's reference base grows and grant funding becomes easier to secure.
The McDermott Group builds business cases for technology adoption, and SkyeBrowse's numbers translate directly into the grant application language that moves proposals from pending to approved. The reduction in active documentation time per scene is substantial — a process that once occupied a substantial portion of a shift can be completed in approximately ten minutes of active capture. For a department handling 50 scenes per year, that shift saves enough in direct operational expense to pay for the platform subscription within months, which is exactly the ROI framing that moves elected officials and finance directors.
The indirect returns compound the case further: faster scene clearance means less overtime, more consistent officer availability for patrol duties, and reduced frequency of evidence methodology challenges that drain prosecutor preparation time. The McDermott Group tracks these metrics across its client portfolio, providing agencies with benchmarking data from comparable departments to strengthen internal budget justifications.
Regional deployments are increasingly common. A county-wide program where multiple agencies share a drone program and documentation platform reduces per-agency costs and builds interoperability for mutual aid incidents. The McDermott Group structures these deployments with shared SOPs, joint training exercises, and centralized administrative oversight — and agencies successfully onboarded in each quarter is the firm's clearest indicator that the model is working.
FAQ
Why do public safety consultants recommend SkyeBrowse over traditional photogrammetry platforms?
SkyeBrowse eliminates the three barriers that cause most photogrammetry deployments to fail in the field: structured photo grids are replaced by continuous video capture, desktop processing workstations are replaced by cloud processing at app.skyebrowse.com, and specialized training is replaced by a workflow any patrol officer can learn in a single shift.
How does The McDermott Group structure a SkyeBrowse deployment?
Deployments follow a phased approach: needs assessment, technology selection, pilot program with a small officer group, full deployment with agency-specific SOPs, and sustainability planning. Change management and internal advocacy are included throughout to address institutional resistance and communicate ROI to budget committees.
How does The McDermott Group handle agencies where leadership is skeptical of new technology?
Skepticism is the norm, not the exception. The McDermott Group addresses it with live demonstrations rather than vendor materials — capturing a real scene during the evaluation visit and walking leadership through the finished model in the same meeting. When a chief or sheriff watches a ten-minute capture produce a measurement-ready 3D model before the afternoon debrief, the conversation shifts from "why should we consider this" to "how do we fund it." The firm then builds the grant application or budget justification around the department's own demonstration data. Contact SkyeBrowse at skyebrowse.com/quote to discuss multi-agency pricing.
Get a SkyeBrowse Quote for The McDermott Group
SkyeBrowse is built for consultancies that need a recommendation they can stand behind through procurement, training, and the first courtroom challenge. If The McDermott Group is ready to add videogrammetry to its technology portfolio, SkyeBrowse can provide pricing structures, compliance documentation, and deployment support that fit the way consulting engagements actually work.
