Event: Funding flexibility & bridging the valley of death
If a company brings a new technology or solution to the Department of Defense, officials have few sources of funding that allow them to capitalize […]
Center for Government Contracting
Bridging the “Valley of Death” in DoD does not require new laws!
Execution flexibility is DoD jargon for delegated authority to move money. It is the most direct way to increase decision speed. Since 1960, execution flexibility […]
LaPlante, Shyu, Lord, and others will be at GMU/DAU Conference 2022!
We got a killer line up at the annual GMU/DAU conference including USD A&S Bill LaPlante, USD R&E Heidi Shyu, PPBE Commissioner Ellen Lord, former […]
Podcast: The power of the industry consortium with Stephanie Halcrow and Moshe Schwartz
In this episode of the Acquisition Talk podcast, we listen in an event hosted by the Center for Government Contracting to discuss a recent paper […]
Event: Securing the MRAP
My colleague James Hasik recently published his newest book, Securing the MRAP: Lessons Learned in Marketing and Military Procurement. In this episode of the Acquisition […]
Mason GovCon releases Acquisition Next: A playbook to break the industrial age paradigm
I’ve talked a lot about PPBE Reform on this blog, and while that is an important effort, there’s a lot that the workforce can do […]
GMU Playbook: Reduce risk with modular contracting
In this week’s blog post on Mason GovCon’s acquisition playbook study, we discuss modular contracting for software-intensive systems. The Federal Acquisition Regulation prefers modular contracting […]
Podcast: What’s the price of an AI/ML product?
As firms are finding out, the unit economics of AI/ML is not exactly like software. It requires more manual manipulation of data than one might […]
GMU Releases Draft Acquisition Playbook, Invites Your Feedback
George Mason University is developing a playbook to help government work with innovative industry partners. After more than 70 interviews with expert practitioners, the Center […]
Event: Measuring R&D productivity
R&D is an easy target for cuts when firms face pressure from quarterly earnings. One problem is that firms don’t have a metric to benchmark […]
Podcast: PPBE Reform Panel 2 — From Ideas to Implementation
In this second discussion on the future of the Planning-Programming-Budgeting-Execution (PPBE) process, Center for Government Contracting executive director Jerry McGinn hosts a distinguished panel including: […]
Podcast: PPBE Reform Panel 1 — Key Recommendations
For the first time in more than 50 years, a serious discussion is emerging on the foundations of defense budgeting and oversight. The “valley of […]
George Mason University study on digital acquisition
How can DOD and commercial companies work together in the most efficient way possible? Discovering the answer is the yearlong quest of a study launched […]
PPBE reform event: an imperative for winning the great power competition
… in my mind, I equate planning and budgeting and consider the terms almost synonymous, the budget being simply a quantitative expression of operating plans. […]
George Mason kicks off an acquisition playbook for the information age
For the past 50 years, there has been a stable consensus about the benefits of competition in the Department of Defense. Unfortunately, infrequent “winner-take-all” programs, […]