Acquisition Talk signing off… for now. Thank you!

It’s been a wonderful experience writing on this blog and podcasting about defense acquisition since October 2018. I’ve published over 1,400 blog posts and 160 podcast episodes. But now it is time for me to take the next step in my career. I’ve accepted a position as a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee with the acquisition and seapower portfolio.

I appreciate all the readers and those of you who have reached out to me over the years, as well as the great opportunities provided by the Center of Government Contracting at George Mason University. For anyone interested, there are multiple job postings if you’d like to work there! [here, here] If you haven’t already, LinkedIn with me here.

I will continue to drop podcast episodes until the very last day. You may have noticed I am turning my research project Programmed to Fail: The Rise of Central Planning in Defense Acquisition 1945-1975 [full-text] into an eleven part podcast series. Check out the introduction here, or on your favorite podcast app including Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or where ever you listen to podcasts! This blog and the podcast will remain accessible for you to use as a reference going forward.

Besides Programmed to Fail (which I actually wrote prior to this blog), here are some of my key works:

• Planning-Programming-Budgeting-Execution (PPBE) Reform
  • PPBE Reform resources page [Link] and reading list [Link]
  • Budget Reform: The Next Frontier of Acquisition Reform (NPS 2020) [Link]
  • Pathways to Defense Budget Reform (NPS 2022) [Link]
  • Execution Flexibility and Bridging the Valley of Death (GMU 2022) [Link]
  • PPBE Reform video series (YouTube) [Link]
• #Make Industrial Mobilization Cool Again
  • Series of blog posts on mobilization [Link]
  • Effectiveness over Efficiency: Preparing the US Industrial Base for Mobilization (YouTube) [Link]
  • Preparing the U.S. industrial base for mobilization (Government Matters) [Link]
  • Munitions Data Analysis
    • Data on DoD munitions and missile procurement FY 2001-2023 [Link]; Analysis of ammunition procurement [Link]; Year-to-year funding stability [Link];  Are munitions really ‘bill payers’? [Link]; DoD reprogrammed nearly $5 billion for munitions in FY22 in response to Ukraine [Link]; A brief history of munitions industrial base. [Link]
• Acquisition Next: A Playbook to Break the Industrial Age Paradigm [Link]
  • Adaptive Requirements [Link]
  • Continuous Market Research [Link]
  • Master the Baseline [Link]
  • Agile Work Statements [Link]
  • Modular Contracts [Link]
  • Smart Intellectual Property [Link]
• Costing Programs and Pricing Contracts
  • Updating the cost-based pricing model (Government Matters) [Link]
  • Cost and Competition in US Defense Acquisition (ICEAA 2018) [Link]
  • Pricing Innovation – Century-Old Cost-Basing Doesn’t Work (NCMA 2021) [Link]
  • The end of accounting [Link] and How DoD misunderstands cost [Link]
  • DoD management in the 21st century [Link]

Feel free to stay subscribed to this blog so when I return to it you will be the first to know — but you won’t find me in your inbox until then! Luckily, a few great newsletters have come out including Pete Modigliani’s Defense Acquisition Innovation and Mike Benitez’s The Merge. I also enjoy podcasts from Building the Base, Cavasships, Constellations, Defense & Aerospace, Defense Unicorns, The Hermeus podcast, Midrats, Emerging Technologies Institute, Contracting Officer Podcast, On DoD, Aerospace Advantage, The Federal Drive, The Contracting Experience, Army Mad Scientist The Convergence, and Voices from DARPA.