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Seal of the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget As the nation emerged from the Great Depression and World War II President Roosevelt’s New Deal continued to place the federal government in the predominate position of providing the economic support, security support, and social support implemented to carry the country through troubling times.  In the 60’s debates emerged as to whether this was a sustainable role for the federal government, or whe

When I hear the President’s Administration talk about refocusing public administration to focus on “efficiency and effectiveness” I hear an administration that speaks my language.  Efficiency and effectiveness are core principles of public administration that informed me of my practices as a civil servant and continue to guide me today in supporting federal programs. I also recognize influences from past administrations, and it is clear which models the current administration

(*This article was published and released on LinkedIn October 10, 2025) On a   recent story-hour   with some of the original Architects of Inefficiency, a claim was made and perpetuated along the following lines ‘ The reason contract bloat and redundancy exist is in government contacting is OMB’s fault.  It was the acting positions that resulted in ineffective management to control contract proliferation by other agencies and keeping NASA and NIH in check. ’   With any good c

(This article was published on LinkedIn October 15, 2025.) Sometimes the unexpected obviousness of something is hard to see.  I did a little research answering the question “What role does the Government-wide Schedule’s-based BPA play in the federal marketplace?”  In a previous piece I show that the explosion of Government-wide Schedule’s-based BPAs exploded after GSA was unsuccessful at closing NASA’s SEWP program in 2007.  It was shortly thereafter that I began working at t

(*This article was published and released on LinkedIn October 13, 2025.) As the calls for contract consolidation continue, we hear the Architects of Inefficiency and their Coalition of Self-Interests continually tease how no other agency other than GSA should be responsible for government-wide acquisitions.  These interests have used an administrative initiative to advance their special interest, none of which have to do with efficiency or effectiveness, but stereotypical of

(*This article was published on LinkedIn October 6, 2025.) There is a tradition in NASA’s SEWP program that the team brings in and out the Fiscal New Year together as team members are approving technology refreshes and processing orders up 12:00am EST.  What this means is that by morning on October 1st the program knows exactly what has occurred through its vehicle.  I make the following comparisons annually, so I can anticipate what we will see from the other vehicles once F

(*This article was published on LinkedIn July 2, 2025.) “Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.” ~ Ray Dalio In 2016 in a GSA Blog Post GSA CIO David Shive launched GSA’s D2D platform claiming “We are now able to make more informed data-driven decisions…D2D allows us to see data in real-time, have productive conversations, make data-driven decisions, and predict outcomes so that we can best plan and prepare for the future.” (GSA CIO Blog, 09/20

(*This article was published in Washington Technology on July 1, 2025. Please click the link to read.) The faulty assumptions behind the OneGov Strategy - Washington Technology

(*This article was published on LinkedIn June 13, 2025.) The Coalition's Trojan Horse Sometimes when you see something you cannot unsee it.  Sometimes it takes time to understand what you are seeing, and once you do you can then look back to make sense of it.  Let me help the GovCon community make sense of what they are seeing right now concerning contract consolidation.  Once you do, you can now make a better sense of what is happening.  But before I do, let’s begin with a q

(*This article was published on LinkedIn June 8, 2025 .) With the Administration’s first 100+ days in office what should be clear is the desire to create a more manageable structure for the Administrative State.  They have folded some basic functions into the General Services Administration and are asking them to go back to their roots of helping to execute the administrative work of the federal government.  They are asking GSA to fulfill their purpose as a functional agency

(*This article was published on LinkedIn May 29, 2025.) Listening to yesterday’s talk by GSA leadership on consolidation and the other responsibilities places on them, Jeff Koses noted how they must consider how the agency will finance these new and existing responsibilities.   The topic of acquisition program funding structures came up earlier this week when meeting with an area executive.  He asked the question “Doesn’t NASA take fees from their SEWP Program?”.  When he ask

(*This article was published on LinkedIn May 19, 2025.) Lately I have been ‘helping’ some former GSA executives understand a bit more about NASA’s stewardship of their GWAC program.  They clearly didn’t know or understand what they were speaking of when referencing it (I am being generous…I find many of these former GSA executives to be abhorrent and utterly self-interested), and I hope they now recognize the essential role this program now plays in the federal marketplace.  

(*This article was published on LinkedIn April 8, 2025.) The federal government finds itself at one of the most exciting crossroads, and one that occurs with rarity.  Reform of acquisitions and the consolidation of government functions has not been tried in earnest in almost 40 years. It is needed, understood as to why, and is painful for many to see, feel, and understand - but what emerges at the back end of this will set the stage for considerably more efficient and account

(*This article was posted on LinkedIn on April 2, 2025.) The past two weeks have been quite eventful as the government and industry continue to grasp the implications and activities that affect this space.  The rumor mill runs rampant among government personnel and contract holders, and people have been reaching out asking me about the implications of GWAC consolidation. Emily W. Murphy , former GSA Administrator under President Trump’s first Administration, and   Terry Gerto

(*This article was published through LinkedIn on January 21, 2025) I would like to thank   Alan B. Thomas Jr.   and   Roger Waldron   for providing the inspiration to write this little article.  A little over a week ago Roger had Alan on his   “Off the Shelf” radio program/podcast .  I encourage people to listen.  It was spicy and provocative (!) (for the federal GovCon space anyway). [ To my friends not in government, this is about as much beltway-inside baseball as you can

(* This was written in 2020 while an advisor and strategist with federal programs). The U.S Government Accountability Office , an agency that provides auditing, evaluation, and investigation services for the US Congress, released report GAO 21-40 "FEDERAL BUYING POWER: OMB Can Further Advance Category Management Initiative by Focusing on Requirements, Data, and Training" on November 30th, 2020. It outlined and documented category management’s emergence from strategic sourci

(* This was written in 2020 while an advisor and strategist for federal programs). In the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act required that the Department of Defense remove the requirement for 24 semester credit hours for specified courses of study, and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense took action this past September. This is an overdue change since requiring specific coursework in certain business-related fields cannot be said to have improved the business o

(* This was written in 2020 while an advisor and strategist with federal programs). In my first and second blog post I show that there appear to be differences in the way that government defines and applies strategic sourcing and category management as compared with Industry practice of the same. With this post I argue that federal government-wide information technology acquisition initiatives have historically been based on three false premises: the Fallacy of Enterprise Gov

(* This was written in 2016 when leading the wireless and mobile technology program at the General Services Administration and while a doctoral candidate at the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy). This is Part 2 of a summary (working draft) describing the origins of two supply-chain initiatives that were introduced in the federal government: Strategic Sourcing and Category Management. The first post covered strategic sourcing and its application as a

(* This was written in 2016 when leading the wireless and mobile technology program at the General Services Administration and while a doctoral candidate at the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy). This is Part 1 of a summary (working draft) describing the origins of two supply-chain initiatives that were introduced in the federal government: Strategic Sourcing and Category Management. This first post will covers the former while the next will cover the