How Presidential Administrations Have Shaped—Or Not Shaped—My Rapid Acquisition Mindset

I was asked how different presidential administrations have affected my rapid acquisition mindset. The short answer is: they haven’t. I’ve always been this way. Administrations come and go, but they’ve never affected how I think about acquisition, streamlining, or how I find my motivation to create faster, better, more efficient, and more effective ways to […]

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Slashing Manpower: The Wrong Place to Start in Government Reform

Efficiency in the Federal Government is a hot topic since the Election.  Without weighing in on politics, I do have a concern that I think we need to keep in mind. Especially those of the “doing more with less” philosophy that I’ve heard for my entire career in Acquisition. Maybe we should be “doing less […]

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Overheard Advice about Advice

I was at my favorite restaurant recently, just chilling over a solitary lunch and writing a blog post in their off-hours.  There were maybe five other patrons in the entire place, all seated at the bar, so naturally, the next diners were seated about two feet from me, with only a screen separating us. I […]

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Perspectives Across Silos: Awareness, Empathy, Solutions

We all live our lives to our own default, and people who think their default is the ONLY way may find others’ different individual and collective defaults to be nonsensical.  Maybe even threatening. Both a conclusion of nonsense or threat can create a lot of animosity as well as resented by the one whose default […]

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Burning Out the Workforce: Why Acquisition Needs to Apply Sustainability to People

Having spent an entire career in Acquisition, I’ve heard the word sustainability more than most humans I haven’t worked with.  Now I’m hearing it more outside of Acquisition than ever before. Isn’t it funny how we can apply the word sustainability to weapon systems and forget to apply it to people?  How often did I […]

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Broadening Your Contracting Perspective: Tools, Techniques, and the Value of Networking

I’m all for leaning into your strengths and doing what you do best in Contracting and Acquisition. I don’t believe you have to be “well-rounded” and work in areas that aren’t suited to your work personality or strengths, but you do need to be open to the very real fact that there may be other […]

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The Long-Term Value of Investing in Workforce Newbies

I’ve taken for granted how incredibly lucky I was when I was a Contracting intern and brand new Unlimited Contracting Officer as a GS 12 with barely 4 years’ experience.  Eons ago.  Back when dirt was new and fire was an emerging technology. I’m stopping to think about it only now when I’ve left the […]

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AI Tools and Contracts: Picking the Right Model for the Job

Warning: AI and Contracting analogy I haven’t seen yet. If you’ve been online with others in your field for longer than 5 minutes, you’ve probably seen colleagues arguing over how wrong different AI models are. Some won’t do math for you, none will give you 50,000 words of perfection in one click, some won’t give […]

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Bringing in Contracting Experts to Help

I see a lot of Government organizations who don’t understand that they need Acquisition expertise, let alone Contracting expertise. It’s funny how often I hear them say later that they didn’t realize how much they needed to consider Acquisition/Contracting in their planning. I also often see people who’ve merely touched a contract in some capacity, […]

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You Can’t Do Cooperation Alone

Between my rented lair and one of my favorite lunch spots is a quiet side street. It’s a charming little stretch, shaded by a canopy of oak trees so thick it feels like a tunnel. The street is narrow, just wide enough for two cars to pass, with on-street parking usually occupied by landscapers and […]

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Rapid Decision-Making: Hunch vs Facts

I learned something new about myself today, which is always cool because learning about what makes ourselves—and others—tick helps us navigate our world better, whether in our personal lives or in our acquisition-related careers. A lot of Contracting Officers I’ve worked with, and especially Procurement Analysts in Policy, can’t seem to get enough data to […]

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Revisiting Workforce Development

If I were a supervisor or division chief again, one thing I’d do for my workforce is to push CliftonStrengths harder. I did give a similar concept a try around 10 years ago with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is a personality assessment tool based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types. It identifies […]

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Misinterpreting Metrics: Lead Time Confusion

That metric may not be what you think. How often do I see that with lead times, particularly where Contracting gets the blame for how long it takes to get from need to solution delivery? I got a parking ticket last week—in front of my house. I don’t have a driveway, so I have no […]

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Goodwill, Boundaries, & Wasting Small Business’ Time

For my Govvies, you’re probably not even aware of this bc people won’t say it out loud to you. Small businesses, consultants, board members, employees, etc, have to mind their tongues or maybe suffer financial consequences. That’s why I haven’t really talked much about this in the last 5 years–bc I might hurt organizations I […]

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